The Didsbury Mouse Trail Comes to Didsbury Park
We were very honoured today to be included in the fascinating initiative being rolled out across Didsbury known as the DIDSBURY MOUSE TRAIL.
This initiative led by Kate involves the creation of amazing miniature artistic models of key features of everyday life in Didsbury. Our model consists of the scene in the volunteers shelter and even includes a replica of the plaque for the Kings Award for Voluntary Service.
Picture 1 taken at our coffee break today does not really do justice to the intricate work involved in the model but it does give an idea of the cleverness, skill and design talent which has gone into its construction. The QR code on the front of the model also directs you to other similar models (e.g. the Didsbury Library) which are dotted around the village. We are currently debating where it might be best to safely display our model for full effect. Our current favourite is on the wall inside the cafe. Please do let me know what you think?
TODAY - TOUCHES OF SPRING!!
It was a real treat to be working in the park this morning especially as the early spring bulbs are now beginning to appear right across the park.
Pictures 2 and 3 are just a couple of examples showing spring is on its way. It is fair to say that after a few short showers and an odd rumble or two of thunder had passed overhead we actually started to feel the warmth of the sun on our faces for the first time for months. Hopefully it is a sign of great things to come and it certainly attracted the highest number of volunteers so far this year. This morning we had a great turnout of 55 volunteers.
Among our volunteers this morning were 17 volunteers from the Growth Company, Nathan from AutoTrader and a new local volunteer called Rebecca. In addition we had some great litter picking help from Marita and young Owen (who was recovering from an operation) - see picture 4 and from Aristhote and Lesha from Bridge College (see picture 5). Everybody was made very welcome.
We also had a very special moment today when sadly we had to say goodbye to Steve who is returning to the North East of England with his family. Steve has been volunteering with us since 2020 and has been a regular member of the 'heavy gang' throughout this period. Picture 6 is a picture of Steve taken just a few weeks ago when he encouraged his visiting son to join him in the park on a Monday morning. A huge thank you from us all Steve for all the work and comradeship you have shared with us. We all wish you the very best of luck for the future.
Finally a huge thank you to Gill N today and to Jo and the team in the cafe who expertly managed the huge numbers at our coffee break, to Sandra for the donation of kit kat's and to Margaret for the donation of a large tine of Scottish shortbread biscuits which she had received as a birthday gift from M&S for using her Sparks card!!
TODAY - THE POPPY PATH
It is a sad fact that the maintenance of the Poppy Path is a problem at the moment due to a dropping off of the neighbourhood volunteers who used to look after it. Today therefore we decided that we should spare some of our large team of volunteers in the park to 'blitz' a recovery project on the path. Thanks to leadership from both John and Jude we were able to clear away some significant 'fly tipping' from the path as well as tidy up a lot of the key overgrown areas along the path.
Pictures 7 and 8 show the volunteers from the Growth Company making significant improvements on the path. Thank you all - this was a huge improvement.
TODAY - THE WOODCHIP TEAM - WE NEED MORE WOODCHIP!!
During the last few weeks we have been adding additional woodchip to the children's, woodland trail, but sadly we ran out of woodchip before we had finished the trail. I have contacted both the MCC arbor team and local tree surgeons to see if we can get a further supply but sadly have not had any positive response yet. So today we resorted to applying a large team from the Growth Company to rake over the area where the woodchip had been stored in order to rescue any recoverable woodchip.
Thanks to the dedication and hard work of this team we were able to recover quite a number of wheelbarrows full, which we then laid on the children's trail. Thank you everyone this was a super effort. If anybody reading this has any contacts who could supply us with more woodchip we would be very grateful to know about it.
TODAY - REMOVAL OF THE IVY ON THE TREES
For the last two weeks our volunteers have been successfully removing ivy from the more noticeable trees in the park and so today it was a case of tackling some of the larger and harder to get at trees. Most of these trees are growing along the Sandhurst Road boundary of the park. So a team consisting of Christine, Lesley, Sandra and Grace started near the Bird Garden end of the park and Kristen, John and Nathan started from the opposite end of the park up near the Poppy Path exit.
Both teams worked incredibly hard and almost filled the green waste skip with cut down ivy on their own. They have not quite met in the middle yet so despite this Herculean effort there are still some additional trees to do next week. Thank you all this was an amazing job.
TODAY - LOTS OF LEAF MULCH FOR THE FLOWER WALK.
The team of Oliver, Steve and Masiye arrived at the leaf pen first thing in the morning and began to collect many wheelbarrows full of mulch.
Picture 9 shows Wahid, Steve, Oliver and Masiye 4 hours later delivering the last barrow loads of it onto the Flower Walk. The whole team were very insistent that they thought they were certainly going to sleep really well tonight after all this fresh air and exercise! Thank you guys - this was an amazing piece of work and we have now virtually spread mulch along the whole of the Flower Walk.
TODAY - ELSEWHERE ON THE FLOWER WALK
At the other end of the Flower Walk the team of Julie, Ilma and Lucy were busy weeding and tidying up the flower beds as the new bulbs and perennial plants start to emerge in the spring. Thank you all - it is exciting to imagine how this Flower Walk will look in a few weeks time.
TODAY - HEAVY GANG REPAIR THE ROTTEN KICK FENCING
The heavy gang of Murray, Richard, Adrian, Carl N and Gary continued their work of replacing the rotten kick fencing on the path up to the Poppy Path. Good progress was made today with the new bird mouth supports being installed and a long piece of top fencing attached. It is hoped to finish this off next week. Well done guys - thank you.
TODAY - THE SANDHURST ROAD PEDESTRIAN ENTRANCE
Picture 10 shows Tristan ensuring that he keeps on top of the trimming required of the shrubs near the Sandhurst Road pedestrian gate. Thank you Tristan.
ELSEWHERE IN THE PARK
With 55 active volunteers working in the park today there were lots of improvement activities being undertaken in virtually every area of the park and on the Poppy Path. I have only included some of the main ones in my update report this week partly due to the fact that there was a huge amount of work happening and it was not possible to get around everybody as normal, and partly because after our coffee break today I had to attend a meeting in the Didsbury Neighbourhood Centre about future CCTV cameras in the park.
I hope you will accept my apologies if I have not managed to mention your work today or included your photograph as many did not make the cut. Hopefully we will be back to normal next week.
Thank you once again for your amazing support.