Standish Guerilla Gardeners

Sometimes when people set out on these type of tasks you expect that mother nature will at least play fair – but sometimes she doesn’t.

When the Romans came to England if during there first summer they’d have experienced the weather we have had over the last few months they would have issued one order – GO HOME!!!

I visited the bottom of the track today to see a few desconsolate blokes sat having lunch in what could only be described as a mud bath. The rain we have had over night has flooded all that they did yesterday and made the job a whole bunch harder. The decision has was taken though to work with the water problem and lay a 5ft track through the middle, that way the water would be able to run off and the centre section remain dry.

So with a broken bike now with a buttled wheel due to sinking in a rather deep muddy puddle (I know I don’t have much luck with bikes!!) I returned to show everyone the pictures of a rather sorry, wet and muddy Standish Line.

So only 5 or 6 hours from when I last posted the digger was parked up and I went out to see what they had managed to do – erm quite a lot!!

So tomorrow 200 tones of Sandstone arrive and away we go – more pictures and a perfect path over the next few days!!

Watch this space.

Ok so the work begins today – 20/08/08

These pictures show the extent of the mile long stretch, to be fair I never thought I’d get them taken at all. As the path is so bad it’s essential to use a mountain bike to get down, go to the garage my bike has a flat tyre, so I hop on my daughters smaller mountain bike, get half way down the line and the chain snaps. Suffice to say we Guerilla Gardeners have to fight on so I did and these are the pictures.

To any locals looking at the pictures, I have taken some reverse shots on my way from Almond Brook to Somerfield just to show the extent of the land in this area, and in some ways to show what it looked like before some more dastardly housing developers move in to cut the green belt down some more.

Oh and for those real nature buffs, if you look at the ponds half way up this is a little nature reserve for Great Crested Newts picture on the right, and to quote the BBC -

Great crested newts are Britain’s largest newt species. Although now afforded some legal protection in the UK, populations have declined over recent years as a result of the destruction and fragmentation of their habitat.

I reckon another reason why the Standish Line should have a little more protection – any chance of making it a proper footpath with a nice sign and some protection ???

The last few pictures show the path that I did on the last part of the project but as you get to the very end of the images you will see the place where the stone ran out, with a bit of luck this area will be widened and for sure new stone.

So there you go – I’ll do another tour as work progresses!!!!