MNTV at Speke Hall on Sunday 28th April 2019

Sadly we had a couple of drop-outs on the morning, so only 3 of us travelled by car-share from Styal. We drove over the 'new' Mersey Gateway bridge between Runcorn and Widnes to get to Speke Hall where we spent the morning helping the Gardener dig over one of the large plots in the Kitchen Garden that was full of weeds and severely water-logged in places.
The 'before' and 'after' photo's below not only show the difference in the plot from when we started to when we'd finished, but the marked improvement in the weather from a cold, damp morning, to beautiful sunshine:-)

Before - the plot full of weeds and the weather cold and damp!

After! - no weeds and sunshine, hurrah:-)

After having our lunch in the Volunteer Gardeners shed, whilst watching the volunteer bee-keepers check on the bee hives, we were treated to a guided tour of the grounds where we saw blue bells in abundance........

Blue bells in the woods

........and the ancient oak 'Bell Tree' which is a sculptural sound installation by Serena Korda, inspired by the fascinating story of hidden rebellions at Speke Hall. Afterwards we were given free access to explore Speke Hall, before the journey home via Styal, to drop everyone back at their cars.

It was a really good day:-)

Sue leaning against Adam, one of the ancient Yew trees in the courtyard, the other is called Eve

Photo's by Adrian

33rd AGM on Thursday 25th April 2019

We held our AGM tonight in the Council Room at Norcliffe Chapel, Styal.  11 members attended plus Iain Thistlethwaite (Ranger, High Peak Estate).

Daniel delivered his Chairman's Report for the year ended 31 March and the Treasurer's Report for the same period.

Room set up

17 members achieved 50-hour Volunteer Cards in the year.  Seven were collected at the AGM and Daniel will post out the rest.

Volunteer Cards & car stickers ready for collection

Adrian, Ally, Daniel, Denise, Sue and Tricia were elected to the Committee for 2019-20.

After the AGM and refreshments, Iain gave us an excellent talk about the 'MoorLIFE 2020' project.  He described the work that the Trust and partners are doing on Kinder Scout and across the South Pennines to:

• stabilise and revegetate bare peat
• install mini dams in drainage channels to rewet the blanket bog
• plant sphagnum moss, a major component of blanket bog

MNTV has had workdays on the Kinder plateau planting cotton grass and will be able to help with this project in future.  Fingers crossed that the work is not destroyed by wildfires such as the recent ones on Marsden and Ilkley Moors.

Daniel Black
MNTV Chairman

No workday on Sunday 21st April as it's Easter day

Path work at Thurstaston on Sunday 14th April 2019

Only four of us made the trip to the Wirral peninsula this weekend, but we had a great day out in the sun and got lots of work done.

We were laying a path on the edge of woodland near Thurstaston Common. A path already exists, but is just trodden into the dirt. We were continuing previous work to create a proper surfaced path by knocking in a wooden edge, lining the base with weed suppressing fabric and covering with an MOT mix to create a hard wearing surface that will still allow the path to drain.

 In the morning we focussed on putting in the wooden edging, using stakes on either side of the edging to create the required curve. The path was popular with walkers and there were plenty of friendly greetings from passers by, both human and canine.

 After lunch we continued to extend the edging but also started laying the fabric and overtopping this with the path surface.

By the end of the day we’d added about 30 yards to the length of the path - a satisfying task with clearly visible progress. We’ll be doing some more path work nearby in a few weeks.

Pub quiz at The Hesketh on Monday 8th April 2019

Nine of us met tonight for our first social of the year - dinner and a quiz at The Hesketh in Cheadle Hulme.  Most of us ate from 7:30pm before the quiz began at 8:30 and those that didn't (Sue and Andy) had the £1 pizza slices at the interval.  It was good to catch up with people's news before the quiz began.

There were too many of us to allow easy (and quiet!) conferring so we split into two teams, one of which (DDMP - can you match that name to the faces below?) did quite well and came fourth overall.

Thanks to everyone for coming and to Sue and Denise for organising the evening.

Daniel

Eleven go to Wharfedale - Sun, Leeks, Cake and even more Cake

Starring: from MNTV Ally, Jenny, John W, Mick S, Neil, Pip and from MNTEV Jacky, John H, Jonty, Mick and Morag

Guest Starring: Newly Qualified Ranger Shelly 

Act 1

Manchester and Merseyside NTV joined forces for our Wonderful Wharfedale weekend.  It was, as in previous years, our annual spring weekend and with a change in weekend venues we headed to the beautiful Yorkshire Dales and so on Friday 5 April eleven volunteers arrived at Townhead Barn in Buckden.  Jenny, Neil and Ally headed to the newly opened Buck Inn with Jonty and Morag for a pre-dinner drink and John W joined shortly afterwards.  Drinks finished, Jonty and Morag headed back to the barn and the other four tucked in to dinner at the pub.  Having nearly finished their dinners they were approached by a gentleman asking if we were from MNTV.  We confirmed that yes we were and so John H from MNTEV sat down with us and had his meal.  Meals completed we returned to the basecamp to find that Mick and Pip had arrived, as had Mick and Jacky who along with Jonty and Morag were tucking into Haggis Wellington.  Wellington eaten we all swapped stories and went off to bed.

Act 2

Saturday dawned bright and sunny.  Breakfast was eaten and the smoke alarm went off due to the toaster being on a too high setting for hot cross buns!  Windows opened we finished breakfast and made our packed lunches.  At 9:15 we were to be met by Ranger Shelly at base and were to follow her up the valley to Yockenthwaite.  It was at this point we discovered that Mick S had slept very poorly that night so he would not be joining us.  Our task for the next 1.5 days was to remove tree guards from trees planted about 12 years ago.  They were located on a steep slope so we spread out across the side of the hill - some went right to the top and others stayed down near the bottom.  We had to tear the tree guards - easier said than done as the perforation didn’t start at the very top so we had to use secateurs to cut the top section then we were able to rip the plastic off.  Some trees had already burst through the guards and some were easier to get off as they weren’t quite so tightly attached.  It was commented on that it was strange how some trees had grown well and others had not.  Upon taking the guards off we found the trees underneath were quite often wet due to rain getting in.  Some weren’t just wet, they had woodlice and one even had slime underneath the guard!

Three different cakes were available at lunch - Jenny’s Chocolate Chilli Brownies and Lemon Drizzle Cake, and Ally’s Marble Cake.  All were delicious.  After lunch, Jonty left us to travel to Hartlepool to teach a Safety in Water training course and we carried on with our work.  The tree guards were made of green plastic and we had to bundle them up and put them in heavy duty farmers' sheep feed bags.  Bundling them together made them look like leeks so they became known as the leeks.

The leeks!

After lunch, Pip, Ally and Shelly collected up the sacks of “leeks” and took them down to Shelly’s truck.  The others carried on with taking the tree guards off and bundling them into the sacks.  We worked so hard that we got the whole task done in one day!  At 4pm Ally called a close to the day.  We were all a little bit red from the sun and in need of a shower.  Shelly thanked us for all our help and making her first job without the supervision of another Ranger so easy – any time Shelly.  We walked back to the cars via the bridge; some did look at going across the river but decided sensibly not to, even though Morag and John W had managed earlier.  We travelled back to the barn where we relaxed and had showers.  Mick S appeared back from his walk.

This is where the weekend changed from normal.  No evening meal had to be prepared because we were eating at the Buck Inn.  At about 6:30 we walked 300 yards to the pub, got ourselves drinks and sat down for our pre-ordered dinner.  John H wasn’t sure he had ordered anything but Ally said he had and as there was Wi-Fi she was able to prove he had by producing his email on her phone.  The Steak and Ale pie was a popular choice with four people having that including John H.  Other choices were Scampi, Fish and Chips, Hunter's Chicken, Burger, Butternut Squash and Chickpea Curry, and Leek, Potato and Cheese Pie.  Although service was slow due to another big group overall everyone enjoyed their meal.  Afterwards John H left to head back to Liverpool because he was flying to Vienna on the Sunday for a conference and the others headed back to the barn to partake in some of the carrot cake that Jacky had picked up in Costco.  It was enormous and had too many nuts in for Ally’s liking.

Act 3

Sunday dawned bright but not quite as sunny as Saturday and as we had finished our task for the weekend yesterday we had a lie in.  Breakfast was a casual affair with a choice of bacon, beans and eggs as well as cereal, toast and of course the aforementioned hot cross buns.  We also made our packed lunches as we weren’t sure what we were doing.  John W suggested a walk along the valley and then back over the shoulder of the hill to Buckden.  Five people took this route whilst three of the Merseysiders went for a shorter walk in the direction of Redmire Wood, last year's weekend worksite.  Neil decided to stay behind and read the newspaper - he said his poor knees wouldn't cope with the planned route.

The five that went for a walk down the valley went along the river to Starbotton and sat at the side of the road eating leftover cake, even offering it to a passing cyclist – he almost stopped!  The route was then steeply uphill and we took a break part way up the hill and of course ate more cake and offered it to passing walkers.  This time, apart from one man, they stopped and ate it!  Returning at about 2pm, the three that had gone in the direction of Redmire Wood were back and Neil had finished reading the paper.  We packed up our food and our luggage and divided up the food that wouldn’t last until our next weekend in July, Summer in Snowdonia, and headed for home.

I’m not sure if we will be returning to Wharfedale in 2020 as I’ve promised High Wray, as we are not travelling there this year, we would be returning in 2020.  What I will say is that the sun shone all weekend and the company wasn’t bad either.  I would like to thank Jenny and Neil for their help with the weekend, Merseyside for joining us and to those of you who came from MNTV you are the best.  To everyone else, where were you?

Wonderful Wharfedale 2019 – Done!

Here's to next time MNTV!