Well I stayed out for nearly 3 hours
I took the car mind you, it's only about a mile and a half walk to the wood from my place but to be honest; in the state I'm in at the moment, I didn't want to waste 40 minutes getting there- seriously; that's probably what it would have taken me
Anyway, I arrived and parked up in the main carpark:
Always a bit bleak up here at this time of year and forever dominated by the Powerlines
But I was out and moving and breathing fresh air again
I decided to wander across to inspect the latest groundworks that the Forestry Commission are carrying out:
This is an extension of the main carpark, the principle reason for this; is to relieve the congestion on the main route in, during the Christmas Tree sales. Friends of Chopwell Wood have paid for this work and F.C. simply grafted it onto some access work they were carrying out anyway. It's really quite impressive, and an asset which will hopefully see gainful employment through out the year.
The F.C. "gang" were busy installing some temp traffic calming measures or barriers, these will be replaced later on, with steel barriers; again paid for by F.o.C.W.
This is Andy and new bod....I think they call her Rachel?..only the 2nd day on the crew
And then in the background;Mark and John "supervising"
I hung around chatting for a bit, then wandered on my way, I stayed on the reasonable paths, for fear of ending up stuck!
I checked out one of the "sculptures" the cruck frame gate:
this has been up quite a few years now, there has been a bit of chat about doing a full size building/shed but there's nowhere to put it, that would be "safe" from porch monkies etc.
On the subject of "porch Monkies":
not sure where the staff were but at least this bunch kept themselves to themselves
Anyway, onward and upwards....... and then my back went twang again! This should have been straight up and down:
just the once but I thought ; "yep that's enough"!
A bit of nature on the way back;
and then I came across this:
I immediately went into magpie mode! I thought: That's a top for my improvised garden burner/incinerator/stove thingy!
It's actually a brand new but old ( if that makes sense?) car brake disc! about 10mm thick and apart from all the rust, unmarked. It took me quite a while, to figure out how the hxll I was going to pick it up off the ground,it actually took nearly a minute in total! but it's mine now
And so; back to the car and home.
I'm sure the vast majority of viewers will be thinking: "What a nugget" but I'm just so pleased to get out again, I just thought I'd share
Apologies to anyone on dialup
cheers
R.B.
