Cemex have been busy. Path cleared on south shore of Manor lake. Colebrook cleared. 12th February 2023

One major danger of my weekly stomp around the restoration is that I miss what has happened. Manor farm is quite large. I do not visit all of it. I have to deduce what Inert and Cemex have been up to.

This latest post in a case in point. The Colebrook, where it passes under the Longwater road, has been a bit clogged and overgrown of late. Certainly the stretch immediately after the culvert has been well overgrown. Last week I parked in the Moor Green Lakes car park, as my spot on the Longwater road was taken. This meant I missed the clearing of the Colebrook. I was able to park on the Longwater road this morning, and so noted what had occured.

On the other hand, Wednesday's stomp from the MGL car park, saw me noticing come contractors beginning work on Manor farm, just west of the footpath leading to said car park. They had two heavy pieces of machinery with them. A ride on mower, with a large blade. And a smaller remote controlled vehicle armed with a bulldozer blade and a stump grinder.

On Wednesday, I saw the man with the remote control vehicle get it to grind up logs, left over from recent tree clearance (another action I had to infer; quite easily due to felled trees and branches). I found it very odd that he should be tasked with grinding logs. Normally they are left to rot and provide a habitat for insects and animals. I don't think he was engaged in stump grinding.

The man with the sit on mower, cleared a path through the area. I discovered on my Saturday stomp that the path paralleled the Blackwater valley footpath (aka south footpath), along the south shore of the current Manor lake, to appear a few metres north of the Bailey bridge. Very curious as to what it is for.

Unfortunately, the contractor was tasked with cutting a path through the undergrowth; which he duly did.  Big problem. A lot of the undergrowth he cut down were brambles. While the brash was cleared, the brambles will immediately regrow; meaning this task will need to be done again in a couple of years time.

Other news. Inert are playing at building mounds again. After flattening pump station mound they are replacing it with a new mound on exactly the same spot!!! Why not simply bulldozer the stuff straight into Manor lake??? Unless, of course, this mighty mound is topsoil. I'm dubious. Inert just like building the ultimate sand (soil) castle.

They have been busy, pushing yet more stuff into Manor lake, but curiously building up the infill height. I am totally perplexed by this. They have pushed further east, along the north of the peninsular, but progress is slow.

Oh, our faithful pump was off, but water levels were really low in all lakes as, finally, we have had a long stretch of dry weather.

Another oh. The Met Office is warning of a Sudden Stratospheric Warming event, the fruits of which may hit us near the end of February. Mad, barmy WX Charts insists that the UK will be hit with a snow bomb (aka Beast from the east), with 2" of snow falling per hour an temperatures dropping to -11C.  Hmmm, we shall see.

A final Oh. Not only did Scotland thrash England last week at Twickers, they also went on to thrash Wales this week! The Irish stuffed the French. Only Ireland and Scotland have a chance of the Grand Slam.

Before slideshow, a map to show where strange new path was cut. It is feasible that the contractors cut another path along the east shore of Manor lake, but I didn't discover if they did as I didn't go far enough east. I'll find out on my Wednesday stomp.