Saturday, 19th January 2019: litter picking and path clearing.

A chilly morning, but the inch or so of snow which fell yesterday evening had more or less disappeared. So we had a great turn out of ten Friends, including one new Friend, Lily.

While three people went off litter picking, the rest of us set off to work on the paths.

Our first port of call was a low lying branch over Crag Lane – not a problem for walkers, but a problem for horse riders.  This branch first started to sag a few months ago and it has been on the “to do” list ever since, but today we were able to put it on the “done” list!

From here we moved on to the path leading from the Stairfoot Lane car park down to the  Stairfoot Lane steps and cleared a lot of brambles and bracken which was encroaching on the path.

As we did this, we noticed that a large silver birch had come down on the “middle” path leading from the steps to the pond, obstructing the path.  We sawed this into smaller sections and moved it off the path.

We then went down to the bottom of the steps and went towards the pond along the path by the side of the stream.  Our first stop was to cut back and remove a tree which had fallen some time ago, partially obstructing the path.

By now it was 11.30 am and Steph left us, heading back to the car park via a rather overgrown path heading up to the “middle” path.  This was not a path we had worked on before and so we cleared the branches growing across it.

By now it was 12 noon and so we set off back to the carpark – walking along the path by the stream to the pond.

Shockingly, when we reached Adel Bog, we were able to see six charity bags deep in the holly between the path and the bog. I say shockingly because we have already removed many of these bags from this area. On the 21st May 2017 we removed seven bags – see https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/friendsofadelwoods.wordpress.com/2402 and on 25th March 2018 we removed another four bags – see https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/friendsofadelwoods.wordpress.com/2953 

These bags – seventeen in all each contain hundreds of unused charity bags. What is extraordinary is that someone has gone to so much trouble to hide the bags in the middle of dense holly bushes, a good ten minute walk from the nearest entrance to the woods.

Finishing on a high note, we enjoyed the walk back from the Bog back to the car park. By now the weather had become considerably milder and it was another very pleasant day.

A very satisfying morning’s work!