Another gorgeous Saturday morning and another opportunity for the Parish conservation volunteers – or ‘Shrub Club’ as my neighbour rather endearingly called us – to meet up and clear some paths. The plan was to start at the path to Buryfields, but some lovely person had already been and done that – fantastic to see: we salute you, unknown person!!!
Volunteering this week were a main team, consisting of Julie, John, Mike T, Chris and son Rupert, and newcomer Lesley from #bartleyheathpottery, whose mission it was to clear the rather overgrown path from the Alton Road to the Church. Elsewhere, Rob T set out to clear the path leading to the underpass by the canal, and Mike O likewise to the path running to the west of RMS leading down to North Warnborough.
Even armed with our latest cutting gizmos courtesy of #HampshireCountrysideServices (plus obligatory C&G certificates in how to use a hedgetrimmer…), the Alton-Church path was a heck of a job – 3 hours it took in the end, with the fab volunteers all kindly staying over the allotted time – I suspect it was the lovely, gooey, home baked brownies that Chris’ wife brought up that convinced people……
Elsewhere, Mike and Rob both smashed their respective areas out the park – hopefully no more lacerated cyclists this year! The pictures tell the story. There was even time (and battery life in the trimmer) left to pop up to the War Memorial and give the bushes there a bit of a haircut…
As always, we couldn’t do this stuff without the generosity and willingness of people to give up their time for the greater good of the Parish – thank you all so much!
Cllr Steve Bell