Rhody bash at Lyme Park on Sunday 15th Feb 2015

Another great turnout with 15 of us rhody bashing in Lyme Park including 7 'newbies'.

We met in the main carpark but took a while to sort out which cars we would take to the smaller Knott car park and who would share lifts with who. It worked out okay though as we were waiting for a couple of new ladies who had had got the train from Manchester to Disley station and were still walking up the main drive to meet us. Once we realised this, Craig (NT Ranger) headed off in his vehicle to pick them up and then we all headed off to Knott car park. Once we were parked, we climbed up onto the ridge on the left and walked to just below Paddock Cottage. Luckily we were going to be working on a relatively flat area and there was a previous firesite that we could re-use to get a fire going, which was a bonus! - Adrian quickly got a fire started.

We spread out along the length of the rhody 'hedge' and worked hard to cut down the rhody branches, drag them nearer to the fire, where others were cutting the branches into smaller lengths to be burnt on the fire.

The weather was crisp and dry and the views were wonderful!

A few volunteers couldn't stay all day so left around lunchtime, so our numbers fluctuated a little. Fortunately for Sue (worksite leader), Tricia kindly donated her lunch before she left because, for the first time in over 15years of being a NT volunteer, Sue had forgotten her rucksack containing her lunch as well as her work boots! Her wellies were in her car boot so she wore those and didn't starve because of Tricia's delicious lunch:-) Sue's excuse for this lapse in memory was that she'd been so busy making sure she took her home-baked lemon drizzle cake for our mid-morning break, that everything else went out of her head!

We had a great day.
By late morning, parking spaces at Lyme were in short supply with cars queuing on the A6 to get in, so Craig had to head off to supervise the parking. A bit later, Jamie(Ranger) and a DofE helper came along to assist us and Chris (Lyme Lead Ranger), who was on his day off and running through Lyme Park, heard we were on site and found where we were to say 'hello'. Later in the afternoon, Sue D who is a Lyme Ranger and a MNTVer, came over to see how we were getting on and have a chat.
It was a busy but very enjoyable day and, at the end of the afternoon, most of us were still on site to have our photo taken.

Grateful thanks to Tricia for giving Sue her butties!