From Field To Woodland

Following on from the theme of excessively large deliveries, I got carried away with my search for a solution to securing the field.  My neighbour David (ever generous with his help) suggested I try a railway sleeper for a gate post. He suggested that they don't cost that much and last a long time if you buy reclaimed ones.  It seems that really, if you want a sleeper, reclaimed ones are the only way to go, the ones garden centres sell are really just fat fence posts and are nowhere near as chunky as a genuine railway sleeper - or as interesting.  So, off I went looking for a bargain. Many places will happily charge you £35 for a battered old sleeper full of bolts , cracks and holes, so when I discovered a place selling them for half that price, I got excited - and in exchange for a take away, the family indulged me a shopping trip.  I am not going to advertise the vendor here as they were not terribly reliable and I wasn't able to negotiate a discount on 20x sleeper...

While itching to get going with some tree planting and really struggling to be patient, it has been good to get on with (be distracted by) some other important tasks.  The Indian Restaurant (Cinamon Lounge) around the corner have tolerated my parking in their car park so far this summer, but that wasn't a long term solution. Also, there were twin issues of the road entrance not being secure - I was worried about fly tipping, and also the wind often blew the gate around as it didn't have a gate post , and the gate being  fairly ancient , it was likely to smash itself to smithereens if left much longer to its own devices. I was keen not to have to find several hundred pounds for a new gate.  So, what to do? The starting point,  a driveway with nowhere to park... Initially I figured I could level some land to park on by collecting garden and building rubble that friends and Facebook contacts had been unable to get rid off without the tip being open (more Covid19 issues)...

Following on from the mystery of Mongo's hole  , a few calls and text messages with the Coal Authority indicated they wished to come and investigate further. The Coal Authority have been pleasingly efficient and lovely to deal with. They have communicated with me regularly , kept me up to date and finally booked in to come and excavate to see what is what. On the rainiest day for months.... They came well equipped with exciting toys and explained that they may make a "hell of a mess" moving down the hill with the caterpillar tracks. They didn't. They took  a lot of care , these guys were really professional and clearly had done this many times before. I reckon they dug down perhaps 10 feet (in about 2 minutes, it was really impressive) before declaring that there wasn't a major problem and we didn't need to worry about mine workings. I enquired if this was "the norm" and it isn't, apparently about 60% of the time, something is ...