Am I first person to walk circular route around Manor farm restoration? Solution to boggy crossing - detour round it. 8th October 2023

An extraordinary spell of hot weather persists into October, after the hottest September on record. Is this global warming or a minor blip due to El Nino? Probably a combination.

Inert have been busy since Tuesday. There really is a big push on to finish groundworks, it's hard to keep up. As I've said previously, Inert are completing in days what used to take them weeks. I doubt very much I am capturing all that is going on. Not just on Manor farm. I can see from the Bailey bridge that Chandlers farm has undergone dramatic changes over the past few months.

I reported on Tuesday that a digger was clearing top soil for the western section of the bridle path. I didn't really expect much progress. Hence, I was gob smacked to find that ballast had been laid along the entire western section of the bridle path - though it may need another layer.

Not only that, but a crossing point had been built to get across the wide boggy area where the path (as constructed) had originally stopped. The solution to crossing this wide boggy area? Simply detour the path southward slightly for it to cross a less wide point. This has meant that a part of the bridle path as originally constructed has had to be destroyed.

About par from what I've seen of the restoration process.

I'm actually quite puzzled about this wide boggy area. It is where the once mighty north embankment and east ridge used to sit. Whilst there was a dip at this point, between the two, I never, ever remember it being boggy. I wonder if too much soil was dug out of this area by mistake?

Inert have also completed the tiny section of bridle path (or footpath if one plan is to be believed) that stops just shy of the Moor Green Lakes Group car park.

The mega dip, just to west of Hawthorn lake, is still there. I can only assume that the remaining section of black, wide, plastic drainage pipe will be used here, and the bridle path (or footpath as some plans show) will be made level.

I might also be the first person to walk around Manor farm restoration along the new Public Rights of Way. Not entirely. I did not walk along the south bridle path on my return leg to my car as Inert were at work, digging out yet more ballast.

Yes, whilst I was traversing the middle of the north bridle path, I heard the sound of heavy plant clanking its way along Chandlers farm. As I approached the east access track, I heard the heavy plant stop on the Bailey bridge, and then the sound of the driver unlocking the padlock on the chain on the gate. I reached MGLG car park, just as he continued his trundling, then I headed south along the footpath to Blackwater river, before turning right at said river to walk back to my car parked on the Longwater road.