Alderley Edge - 24 November 2013

Ten of us spent today laying a section of hawthorn and blackthorn hedge near Daniel Wood, continuing work begun by the Sale volunteers two weeks ago.  Our group was a mix of old hands and new faces.  Reaching the worksite required a fifteen minute walk through muddy fields, and warmed us up nicely for the task.  Twenty Congleton and Macclesfield volunteers joined us after half an hour and worked on the hedgerow perpendicular to ours.

There were several parts to our job:
- first, taking down a 40-meter section of wire fencing and coiling up the wire
- pruning the hedge in such a way that the thorn trees could be laid to the left as we looked at the hedge
- laying the hedge and knitting it together using hedging stakes that we had whittled
- burning the brash (it burned very well and at one point the flames shot 12 feet into the air!)

hedgelaying and pruning
(the Macclesfield and Congleton volunteers are in the distance)

The weather was cold all day but mainly dry.  Elevenses and lunch were taken round the bonfire.  Daniel's Chocolate Chip & Vanilla Marble Traybake went down very well.  All 25 pieces were eaten!

When we packed up at 3:45pm in fading light we had laid 25 metres of hedge and pruned another 25 metres to the corner of the field.  Tim Ryan (Ranger) was pleased with our work.  He said the hedgelaying season runs until the end of February and was agreeable to booking us in for workdays in January and February so that we can continue this section of hedge (or other sections in adjacent fields).

Hayfield - Sunday 17th November 2013

Although not originally planned as a joint-workday, 9 of our MNTV group ended up working with 4 Sheffield University students, 3 National Trust Rangers and various dogs:-)

We met at the Mam Tor car park (known as Mam Nick) which Shane, the lead NT Ranger, had recently been asked to manage along with a couple of other NT car parks and land nearby. The diversion on the way was a 'challenge' but fortunately we all made it.

The tasks were: to tidy up the car park edges, remove a wire fence and wooden posts that were no longer needed and to thin the tree's surrounding the car park by cutting off the side branches up to head height. This was to improve security so the parked cars could be seen from the road as well as removing some smaller tree's completely to give other, stronger trees the room to grow.

Jon removing the side branches

Shane with some of the students from Sheffield University



We had reasonable weather although it was cold and a little drizzly for some of the day but then it brightened up and it was just fabulous being out in such amazing countryside.
There was a lovely atmosphere and everyone was chatting while they worked. There were a couple of new volunteers in the MNTV group: Sue who had come along after seeing our recent recruitment advert in the Manchester Evening News and Jon, who had been recommended to try one of our workdays by a fellow college student who had been out with us recently.

We always enjoy our workdays in the Peak District and today was no exception!

Pub quiz at the Unicorn on 13th November 2013

Nine of us met up at the Unicorn in Dean Row (Wilmslow) for their weekly Wednesday pub quiz at 9pm.  The maximum team size was 25 which meant we didn't have to split in two.  The quiz was the usual multi-round format and we had questions on bank notes (the faces round), pop music, general knowledge, sport, films, geography and literature.

Sample questions:

- How many points would you score if you bowled a perfect game of ten-pin bowling?
- Which movie had the strapline "They'll never get caught.  They're on a mission from God"?
- If you headed due east from New York which country would you first arrive at?
- Who wrote Moby Dick?
- Which English actress is married to Tim Burton?

To our surprise we won, beating the twelve other teams!  That's two wins in our last three quizzes!  First prize was a £20 meal voucher or two bottles of wine.  We chose the wine (white and rose) and will take it to High Wray at the end of the month for our Christmas weekend.

Gordon was behind the lens... note the two wine bottles!

Thurstaston Common (10 Nov 2013)

Five of our volunteers made their way to the meeting point in Royden Park sharing cars from Styal.

We spent the day with two Rangers and half a volunteer from Merseyside (well one volunteer for half the day) clearing European gorse from near a drainage ditch.  If the rangers knew exactly where the ditch was they could have used a tractor with a flail, to clear the gorse but it was hidden by the vegetation so this time it had to be done by hand.

The gorse was burn on a controlled fire - which was on corrugated ion to protect the heathland flora.  The rarer western gorse was left well alone.

Once the gorse is clear the other job will be sorting out the drainage but again - that can be done with a machine once the landscape if visible...

Biddulph Grange Gardens 3 November 2013

I was unable to attend this week - thank you Tim for leading and supplying these words

Four of us met in  the car park at Stile for a lift share to Biddulph this week.

The task had changed from the advertised one of Dahia bulb digging and sorting to the more arduous ones of badger fence construction and willow stump removal. Despite a few heavy showers the day was mostly dry with some sunny patches.

We had our breaks in the charming Cheshire cottage volunteer room which is well appointed with comfy chairs and brew facilities. The passages underneath the cottages representing an Egyptian tomb had been decorated with plastic rats, skeletons and other macabre objects for Halloween and a recorded sound track of screams and the gnashing of teeth made for interesting brew time listening. 

At the end of the day we were invited to the on site cafe where we were treated to pots of tea and massive pieces of chocolate cake. All in all an interesting and productive work day
 
sorry no pictures of the day itself.