MNTV social: pub quiz at The Hesketh, Cheadle Hulme on Mon 9th March 2020

Five of us, a smaller group than usual (partly due to concerns about the current coronavirus outbreak) met at The Hesketh this evening. Sue, Phil and Andy had a meal before the quiz started while Karin and Richard joined us a little later.
As the quiz papers were being handed out, we were told that the format of the quiz would be different this evening because the sheets had been prepared to raise money for charity. We would be taking part in the World's Biggest Pub Quiz, which was running between
8-12th March, raising money for Action Against Hunger. A donation bucket was circulated before the quiz began.
The quiz started with a picture round, all the names of the people in the pictures had a link to food or drink, then we were asked questions from 5 different sections and the answers in each section had links to something, be it sport, colours, mathematical terms, writers or elements. This was fun and helped us decide if an answer was likely to be correct.
Although there wasn't 'officially' a music section, the quiz master likes doing a music section, so added that in as an extra.
After we swapped papers with another table, the answers were marked before the papers were handed in to the quiz master to be collated. When the scores were read out, we came 7th out of, approximately, 20 teams - so not a bad result (mainly thanks to Phil's amazing contribution!)

Richard took the photo

Edging the drive at Dunham Massey on Sunday 8th March 2020

Nine MNTVers met ranger John in the car park at 09:30 for our second workday this year at Dunham Massey. We’d had no info about what job we’d be doing and it turned out the ‘routine’ bow saws and loppers we’d taken with us weren’t needed. We worked most of the day on our own as John was the only ranger on duty and had to spend most of his time supervising the carpark.

The task was trimming the edge of the main driveway leading to the house, a job well known to everybody who has a lawn in their garden, but in this case the ‘lawn’ was the park and the driveway is 1km long!

We hammered in metal posts, strung string between them, then used a hoe to cut a neat edge. This was a basic, straightforward but useful job; too big a job to complete in one day but we made a good start.

Once the trimmings and winter debris had been cleared way, the drainage and appearance of the approach to the house looked a lot better. The location was very visible to visitors and gave us lots of opportunities to chat and spread the word about MNTV.

Afterwards:-)

The weather was wetter than forecast but the showers didn’t last too long and were followed by sunshine. We managed to have lunch during a sunny period; the cake selection today was multinational, stollen from Germany and Bolo de Mel de Cana (cane sugar) from Madeira.

 Text from Jean, Photo's from Jean and Karin

Rhodi bashing at Lyme Park on Sunday 1st March 2020

Twelve of us from MNTV met Ranger Dan in the main Lyme Park car park at 9.30am, together with a couple of Lyme Park volunteers.
Although it was a nice day, Dan suggested we wear our wellies if we had them because it would be very muddy in the area of the park that we would be working.
We loaded his vehicle up with our tools and rucksacks and walked to met him up by the kennels, where we unloaded our gear and continued on foot to Coalpit Clough, in the Red Deer Sanctuary, through some exceptionally boggy area's due to the recent rain!
After a health and safety talk, Dan told us about the work that's been done in placing 80 bird boxes in the area. This is to encourage migratory birds, such as Pied Flycatchers, who travel from sub Saharan Africa to Lyme Park each year. He told us that some of the individual Pied Flycatchers use exactly the same bird boxes that they'd used the previous year!

Loading the fire

Then, while a couple of us started a fire, the rest collected the tools and, in small groups, started cutting down the rhododendron, dragging it to the fire where it was cut into smaller lengths before being burned.

By mid-morning, the decision was taken to start a second fire which was nearer to a large clump of rhodi, so anything cut from it didn't need to be dragged very far.

In amongst the rhodi!

Although it was a cold day (we had 30 seconds of hail at one point!), it stayed dry and bright, and we all enjoyed a great workday and a break from the rain of the past week.

End of the day group photo (two MNTVers had left before the photo was taken)

Photo's from Tricia and Sue

*CANCELLED* workday at Hardcastle Crags on Sunday 23rd February 2020

Today's tree planting at Hardcastle Crags was cancelled because nobody signed up.  Perhaps people were put off by the wet weather forecast and early start (9:30).

Collecting and chopping wood at Lyme Park on Sunday 16th February 2020

The work programme said we were off to Biddulph today, but Storm Dennis had other ideas and the task of planting whips at Biddulph had to be postponed.  Not to be put off by some wind and rain Ally phoned round and found a task for us to do in the bad weather.  Chris and Craig at Lyme asked if we could help clear up some branches that had been cut from the oaks near the picnic area and car park and chop some firewood.

We were reminded how dangerous the wet and slippy ground can be when the Ranger was called away to help rescue a lady who had slipped and broken her ankle.  He stayed with her until the ambulance arrived to take care of her.

When we finished loading we made use of the picnic tables for our morning break. Refreshed, we made our way up to the kennels to find some wood to chop.  We found a little more than we could do in one day, but we had a good go.

By the end of the day we had added two more ceiling high stacks of chopped oak to the wood store.  The oak will take three years to season ready to burn in the houses on the estate.

The Rangers were busy controlling the water levels around the estate because of all the rain we had had on Saturday.  Luckily, contrary to the weather forecast, we had very little rain on the day and even had a little sunshine.  We returned home with the satisfaction of another day's volunteering completed and friendships renewed.

Jenny

*CANCELLED* workday at Styal on Sunday 9th February 2020

Today's workday at Styal was cancelled due to Storm Ciara.

Various tasks at Formby on Sunday 2nd Feb 2020

A quartet of hardy MNTVers travelled to Formby on a surprisingly fine day to work with rangers Will and Izzie and ten members of the Merseyside NT Volunteers; we split into two groups to work on multiple tasks. The area is very popular, especially with dog walkers, and our job for the morning was to improve access from one of the car parks to the sea. The rangers had already scraped off the top layer of a wind blown path so we hauled a mixture of sand and stones to relay the surface.

Working on the path...

The mixture was then tamped down with a roller to make it weather resilient. A total of 100 tons of material will be needed to complete the job.

...and after it's been tamped down.

In the afternoon we carried out mitigation work the National Trust needs to do to balance the installation of a pay and display car park. We used ‘tree poppers’ to grub out planted poplar trees from amongst the native dog rose. The aim of the project is to create a mosaic environment to enhance the conservation value of the area.

Even though there were only four of us, the fact we were able to work alongside the Merseyside group enabled us to achieve visible progress.

Text and photo's from Jean