Play halted on Manor farm. Activity switches to Chandlers farm. 8th July 2023

A feature of Inert's restoration process (which I've noticed over the years) is how they flit about the site, working on unrelated bits, while not appearing to ever finish what they started. This is anathema to an engineering/scientific mind which, as far as possible, likes to start at one end of a solution and work their way linearly to the other end. Any flitting about is minor in nature.

Inert's modus operandi appears to be flit: about in a seemingly random nature, and via a process of Brownian motion, aided by a gentle breeze,  meander towards a conclusion; with many an ox-bow lake of inexplicable construction and activity on the way.

Thus we find Inert switching restoration to Chandlers farm from at least Wednesday onward.

Their capping of topsoil on Manor lake appears patchy and incomplete. One wonders if they were even supposed add a capping layer. It is, as the Inert site manager said, a skim layer. Perhaps no more than 6 inches deep. This in stark contrast to the 15 to 18 inches they put on the middle section of the site.

I also noticed that the soil they used was inferior to what they used on the middle section of the site. This is hardly surprising as soil from the embankments were used for the middle section. The embankment soil was scraped off the site to expose gravel beds, and has matured nicely over the years. It really is excellent loam type soil, with a lot of humus in it.

I had difficulty trying to work out what the digger did on the southwest corner of the east part of Manor lake. The water didn't look particularly deep, and be shoreline didn't look particularly worked on. Very curious.

The rest of the site looked untouched.

Of course, there could be any number of reasons for this hiatus in restoration. Inert may have had an unexpected delivery of stuff or they may have had to ship stuff out to another site. Perhaps there was a last minute change in plan. Or perhaps Inert got bored working on Manor farm. Alternatively, they might have decided to wait for the results of a meeting at the end of this month with all interested parties to determine next steps.

Breeding should normally have stopped by the end of this month, even of LRPs. In fact, it is possible for some LRPs to be migrating back to their place of origin.  Thus, Inert can crack on with the installation of the sluice gates, and maybe their plan is to coordinate this with the major landscaping left to complete.

Who knows. I certainly never fathomed out their operating methods.