Pond work at Dunham Massey on 13 July 2014

Today we had a joint workday at Dunham Massey with Merseyside NTV.  There were nine of us and six of them.  As hoped, Anne Yates MBE, who last year completed 25 years' service with MNTV, was in the car park when we arrived and so we all congratulated her on her award, heard about her big day at Buckingham Palace last month when she received the award from Prince Charles, looked at her photos and saw the beautiful medal itself.

Once Anne left we walked over to Island Pond where we spent the day working with ranger John Mann (back on light duties after his operation) clearing irises from the margins of the pond near the inlet.  All afternoon we worked to the sound of brass band music drifting over from the summer fete at the back of the house.

(Left to right) Lisa, Adrian, Matt and Neil 

The tried-and-tested technique for iris clearance is for those in the pond to cut the iris bed up with spades, fill bread baskets with the cuttings and then people on the bank drag the baskets up planks out of the pond.  From time to time Tim O amused us all with cries of 'crocodile' or 'snake' to keep those in the water on their toes!  We didn't see the terrapins that John said we might but Karin did find a frog (or was it a toad?) and we saw ducklings, a heron, moorhens and lots of small fry.

We finished at 15:30 and some of us then went for bara brith in the Visitors' Centre cafe.