Ock Valley Walk, Town End, 14th March 2015

By Andrew -
Seven of us, an unusually small number, assembled for the first of two sessions of renewing the woodchip path at the town end of the Ock River Walk. 

 We had decided to leave the path work until March in case there were winter floods as there had been for the past two years. The Town Council had left us two large piles of woodchip at either end of the path and some of us began spreading it on to the eastern end path and shovelling it into our one wheelbarrow while the others began raking twigs from the path and roughing up the surface so the woodchip could bed down better. 

 We were very glad when Colin arrived with his trolley, enabling us to shift a lot more. We made remarkable progress considering there were only a few of us and by the tea break we had progressed more than half way. Having exhausted the first pile, we decided to move to the other end of the path.

 By 12.30 there was only about one fifth of the path left to do next week, though there would be other tasks such as removing brambles and clearing fallen branches. The earlier sunshine had given way to cloud and a chilly wind so we were glad to head home, satisfied with our morning's work.
-Eleanor

Shovelling begins

Dieuwke raking the woodchip

Tea break

Margaret with the wheelbarrow

Colin with his trolley

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