Weekend away at High Wray, Cumbria on 25-28th August 2017

After six years of having our annual Christmas weekend at High Wray in Cumbria, we decided to do something quite radical this year: we went there in summer instead! And Christmas will instead be celebrated in the Yorkshire Dales at Buckden.

The night before

Grey skies and steady rain accompanied the drive up the M6 and A591, but we all arrived in decent time. Lisa and I had brought a tent, which we managed to put up before dark. We were slightly apprehensive about the volume (and poor quality) of the music being played by our neighbours in the other basecamp block 100 yards away, but thankfully the rain had sent them indoors long before we turned in for the night.

Home for the night ...

Day 1. Task: fence removal. Small green visitor of the day: froglet.

The next morning we were woken by the flapping of wings as birds flew over our tent on their way to the feeders that hang outside the basecamp veranda. We were treated to blue tits, great tits and coal tits, chaffinches and goldfinches, and a couple of nuthatches.

The nuthatch opts for the seed feeder rather than the nuts!

At 9.30 we set off for Fletcher's Wood near Elterwater, where we removed an old fence that was past its best, had given way to a new replacement, and had sulkily started to embed itself into the ground, the wall and various posts and stumps. We grappled with wire, posts and undergrowth, and had done the bulk of the work by lunchtime.

Lisa and Gordon multitask by flattening the old wire while imitating some animal or other

After being greeted at lunchtime by a froglet that somehow avoided the trampling of boots around our camp, and indulging in Ben's lemon drizzle and Ally's tiffin, we headed uphill to find more old fencing, and dragged down several large bundles of wire to leave with the morning's spoils, just behind the wall by the road, for woodland ranger Richard to pick up at a later date.

Little lunchtime visitor

After an afternoon spent showering / recovering / drinking tea, Lisa and I cooked up some pasta for tea - despite carefully measuring out the quantities, we had twice as much as we needed - followed by chocolate orange cheesecake which did its best not to set, but still tasted great. Then the games began.

Lisa beat me in the opening round of Giant Connect 4, was then beaten by Neil, who was then beaten by Martin. Martin managed to avoid the 'Curse of the Champion' and went on a half-dozen game winning streak before I came out on top in an epic tactical battle that eventually came down to whoever was the first to be forced to drop their big plastic disc into the 'column of instant death'.

The tension is palpable: Giant Connect 4 doesn't get more epic than this ... Note the 'column of instant death' third from the left!

Giant Connect 4 was followed by Giant Jenga, played on a big and very grippy set that Gordon suspected had been waxed at some point, making it impossible to move most of the bricks without bringing the whole stack crashing down.

Lisa expects while Ally ponders. The rest of us keep a safe distance!

Bedtime followed swiftly, and while Lisa and I settled down in the tent with music still being played loudly by the neighbours, at least there was some quality '80s fare being offered up, in contrast to the previous night's drivel. Within seconds though there were some extremely loud bangs (thankfully it was fireworks in Windermere rather than gunshots in High Wray), followed by a couple of minutes of the neighbours' dogs baying like the hounds of war. After some 'encouragement' from Lisa, the music was turned down a few notches and we finally got to sleep.

Day 2. Task: spruce clearance. Small green visitor of the day: lizard

Day 1 had seen us complete the fencing work in double quick time, so we stayed closer to basecamp today and did some spruce regeneration clearance at Nor Moss, a task that we had done last Christmas.

Any job that involves mattocks is usually an unwelcome one, with 'backbreaking' and 'attritional' being uppermost in the vocabulary of descriptive terms. And there were some big trees to remove (Philippa cunningly demonstrated on a small specimen, exactly as her colleague Matt had done last Christmas!).

"Can we fit this in the car?"

But as we set about the job, we found that a methodical approach, strategically targeting particular roots, worked a treat. At one point Lisa and I took out seven closely growing trees in one go, while later on a 15-footer was taken down in just a few minutes with minimal fuss.

Excitement was provided when Tim and Tricia discovered a small lizard beneath a big tree (which unfortunately they'd just destroyed). This definitely trumped yesterday's frog as the most exciting small green thing to appear on a worksite over the weekend. It was allowed a couple of minutes of fame before being released back under the trees.

The best small green visitor of the weekend

By 12.30 we'd done a surprising amount, and piles of vanquished spruce dotted the borders of the moss. Then we headed back to pack up (well, most of us except Ally, Neil and Madeleine who were staying an extra night). Ally was particularly handy at deflating airbeds.

Mick and Pip turned yesterday's excess pasta into a delicious lunch that was enjoyed by all. It was a glorious afternoon and felt too soon to be heading home. But we'll be back, whether that's in summer or winter next year.

Day 3. Optional day of leisure

Neil, Ally and Madeleine did some stuff. I'm not sure exactly what, aside from visiting Wray Castle (judging by Ally's Facebook page) as by this stage I'd gone home and was lifting bricks and shifting soil in the garden. I'm sure Wray Castle was much more enjoyable!

The Weekend Reprobates (sorry, 'Hard-working volunteers'!)

Heathland clearance at Bosley Cloud (aka 'The Cloud') on Sunday 20th Aug 2017

Seven of us met on Tunstall Road near the entrance to Gosberryhole Lane at 9.30am.
Despite mixed weather reports during the week, by the time the day dawned, no rain was forecast and it ended up being warm and sunny:-)
For those of you who are unfamiliar with The Cloud, it is 300m high and is a prominent and compelling feature in the surrounding Cheshire lowland countryside. Since 1800, 84% of Britain's lowland heath has been lost and as such, areas such as the Cloud are extremely important. This has been reflected in the Cloud being designated as an area of Special Biological Interest.
Tim, the Ranger who covers the Cloud, couldn't join us today so, earlier in the week, Sue had collected a few mattocks from him and a map with instructions.
The biggest 'downside' of Tim not being with us was that we had to walk all the way up The Cloud carrying our tools, rucksacks and First Aid supplies, instead of getting a lift in his vehicle - it's a long way up!
Having reached the top, we surveyed the glorious countryside and magnificent views, had a look at the toposcope, then worked out where we were to be working. It took a while to find the correct way to get over the wall onto the heathland but, once there, we saw the task before us - lots of lowland heath but with birch sapling growing in amongst the heather. Our task was to remove the birch including the roots and then carry/drag the tree's to another area.

Magnificent views:-)

Some of the saplings were so small, they could be pulled out easily by hand, but others were bigger, more established and needed mattocks to loosen the soil around the roots and occasionally loppers to cut some of the really long roots that were difficult to pull out.

Working hard!

It was hard work but satisfying to see the big pile of birch that we'd uprooted by the end of the day.

Making a difference. 

The heathland didn't seem to look that different when it was time to leave, but we were pleased that we'd done our bit:-)

Group photo (taken by Adrian).

 Photo's taken by Adrian.

Rhody bash at Lyme Park, Disley on Sunday 13th August 2017

This Sunday's workday was at Lyme Park, cutting rhododendron in Hampers Wood. 
When the park had fallow deer, this had been their enclosure, but only a small, fenced off part of the wood called Fallow Deer Grove remains as a reminder of their former presence.

Tools and safety talk before we got started.

For the eleven volunteers the day was a mixture of work, sunshine through the trees and wildlife. This included:
A buzzard
A frog
A sparrowhawk
A fox (just the back legs and tail seen)
Lots of flies
The least popular being the flies, which found something interesting in the spot where we had our lunch. Otherwise this was ideal as it was a spot where the forest school had set up log seating. There was evidence of other wildlife. The two stags which have managed to get into the wood and have so far evaded the rangers' efforts to chase them out again had left trails and some fresh poo. There was also a large hole uncovered as the rhody was cleared, which was believed to contain a badger, and almost ended up containing a volunteer.

Artistic shot of the fire!

We cleared a lot of rhody as we could continue to cut it down after we had stopped feeding the fire. The fires we have need to die down sufficiently before we leave and this generally means no more rhododendron cut as we don't want to leave piles of handy firewood around near a smouldering fire, encouraging someone to get the fire going again later. This wasn't a problem in Hampers Wood as there is no public access so we could merrily cut and leaves the piles for another group to burn.

Lunch time!

Text from Mick. Photo's from Adrian.

Removing Ghost brambles at Biddulph Grange Gardens on Sunday 6th August 2017

Eight of us arrived in the Biddulph Grange Gardens car park, at the slightly later time of 10am. Two of the Biddulph volunteers came to meet us and took us to the Ghost brambles that needed to be removed, along with some pussy willow tree's and some holly, if we had time.
Sue had brought bowsaws and loppers from our tool store as well as some fire-lighting aids. The Rangers at Biddulph had left some pallets and cardboard, which we could use if we wanted, to get the fire going.

This is how it looked!

We were warned that the Ghost bramble had hook-shaped barbs so, if it got hold of you or your clothing, it would scratch and hook into you until it was removed! We all wore long sleeved tops at first but we got so hot, particularly when the fire was roaring, that some of us worked in short sleeves and risked the scratches.

Starting work

We set to work, 7 of us started tackling the main patch but Tricia went to the other side of the pond and started clearing a smaller area by herself. She was using the new Fiskar loppers that Sue had brought along, and we reckon they really made a difference, as she had cleared the whole of her area by the end of the afternoon.

Making a difference

After cutting down quite a bit of bramble, Neil got the fire going, so we could burn as we cut.

Feeding the fire!

Sue had brought lemon cake for morning break, which helped us work hard cutting down and burning until we stopped for lunch, having stoked the fire as high as we could before we stopped so it kept going.
During the afternoon, a call came over the radio that an ambulance had got stuck in some mud in the car park and could anyone help - Andy and Neil dashed off to offer assistance and get it out and on it's way:-)

Making the fire site 'safe'

Before we finished for the afternoon, we burnt all the bramble and tree's that we had cut down, tidied the area and put the red & white tape around the fire as it was burning down, so visitors to Biddulph Grange gardens were aware that it was there.
We had a great workday, spoke to lots of visitors who had come over to see what we were doing and we'd cleared two area's of the Ghost bramble - what a result!

We made a difference:-)

Tricia's patch!

Photo's by Andy and Sue.