Volunteer work parties

You may be disappointed to read that a bit of summer rain dampened our enthusiasm for carrying out footpath improvement work. We made a good start before the deluge descended upon us by assisting the Cotswold Wardens constructing two wooden kissing gates (to replace stiles) and were most impressed by the standard of work we helped to achieve, but perhaps work not best suited to our efforts at present.

Our next venture was the erection of marker posts that did prove to be within our capabilities. Five of us made short work of two marker posts at a complex pair of junctions on the dDW. It was soon evident that there was more to this work than you might realise, with the careful positioning to ensure the posts remained vertical during backfilling and compaction. The odd root and stones made for good exercise digging the post holes deep enough to satisfy our Countryside Service task masters. There was an equal need for volunteers to tackle the lighter tasks, the posts required the careful alignment of the way mark discs, checked for visibility and the area left tidy with the grass that was initially removed, replaced around the posts.

Peter Ewart