The weather forecast for today was cloudy with sunny spells in the morning and rain from 2 pm onwards.
Your correspondent woke at 7 am to a glorious day – a blue sky with not a cloud in the sky.
By 10 am it was overcast but still a pleasant morning and twelve of us, including Steve Joul, met in Buckstone Road to work on Adel moor and litter pick. Three of us set off to litter pick and the rest of us set off to the moor.
Our task this morning (on the moor) was to dig up brambles and saplings, pull up weeds (like rosebay willow herb), and cut back tree branches encroaching onto the moor. We also had a look at what we could do about trees which have been cut down – or in reality coppiced – in the past.
The moor was looking great: the hard work of FOAW and other groups of volunteers led by Steve Joul and the other rangers has really made a huge difference.
All was going well until it started to rain at about 11.15. Being hardy souls, we continued with our work, but then the heavens really opened!
We continued working for a few minutes, but it soon became obvious that the rain was not going to stop and we were all completely saturated.
We abandoned ship and packed away our tools – not an easy thing because everything was by now really wet and we had pools of water in our tool bags and wheelbarrow!
On the way back to the car, we came across our hardy litter pickers!
Ironically, when we got back to the car, the rain slowed down and eventually stopped and the sun came out!
It was a day of mixed fortunes: your correspondent was delighted that so many Friends turned out today to litter pick work on the moor – which is a lovely place to work, and a favourite among Friends of Adel Woods. But it was frustrating to be rained off when there is so much work to do.
PS It started to rain again at about 1 pm and didn’t stop all afternoon.
Friends of Adel Woods 