Yes it’s been a long time since my last visit. There’s a big road works going on and a contra-flow in place and the traffic build up during the week is horrendous. Not all that good at weekends but better, so I am restricting myself to them. But then the weather is also a deciding factor, had a lot of rain and wind plus other commitments. I went on Saturday to check it out but mainly to work. I knew the paths would be overgrown with bramble and in some parts nettles, so I took my antique scythe. It can’t cope with the really thick bramble runners so in parts it was a case of hacking it back with a machete – real cliche film stuff of hacking through the jungle. An hour of hacking and scything got me about 75 metres of clear path down to the hazel copse. One look at that and I almost fainted! Another day.

I had a walk around as usual just to see how things are and came across this hole. I’m sure it’s a badger looking for something to eat. I had a fresh one like this some years ago and it was full of wasps. Badgers are fearless of them, their thick fur coat cannot be penetrated by wasps. In the woods, wasps usually nest underground and the badgers dig them up for the juicy protein rich grubs.

After lunch I set-to clearing another path, the one that leads up into the sycamore plantation. The entrance to it has some lovely ferns growing and I decided to divert that part around them which is a thick tangled mess of very long brambles. The best solution for that was to hand pull them up by the roots. The rain has softened the soil so a good time to attempt it. An hour of heavy, sweaty work cleared only about a ten metre stretch but it was very satisfying even though I came away with numerous scratches. You can see how dense it is behind the cleared area. The ferns will love the extra space too.

Apart from filling same trugs with logs to take home, that was about it. Hoping to go again before too long. Just a few photos to finish.