Hedgelaying at Alderley Edge, Sunday 15th January 2017

In recent years we’ve had some cold and wet hedgelaying days in January. Sadly this wasn’t an exception! Heeding a very poor weather forecast, most MNTVers had stayed indoors, but four of us turned up with waterproofs and a determination to get on with the job.

A friendly ovine greeting? No, they just wanted food.

We got a lift to the worksite with Dave the ranger, and were then greeted by a flock of eager sheep who thought we’d come to feed them. The hedge had been ‘broken in’ in a couple of places, with areas left standing in between. While Tim and Andy worked at the front end of the bit we were laying, Christine and I worked on the broken in section. The job is actually well suited to a small group and we made very good progress.

Getting on with it, amid unrelenting misery from the skies.

After a brief and very soggy morning break, where we started to feel the damp and the cold, we got back to business, and eventually we joined up our different sections into one length of beautifully laid hedge. There was a bit of heave-ho required with a few of the bigger trees that had been broken in and laid out to the side of the hedge, as we had to lift these up to lay other trees that were underneath them.

 

We put in some stakes, broke in the hedge further down for the next group, and by 1pm we’d done as much as some larger groups have done in a full day. So we gave ourselves a metaphorical pat on the back, called Dave to ask him to pick us up, and went off to find somewhere warm and dry.

The beautiful fruit of our labours.