I'm a twisted wire starter

The weekend of the balloon fiesta saw many folks up early to watch the unfolding spectacle so it was good to see plenty arrive for our group run today. We even had a visitor from Cardiff - nice to have you along today Martin!

With the recent dry conditions, fire starting is definitely not a good option up on Narroways nature reserve but we found a rhyming equivalent up on 'Cutthroat lane' today as we helped repair a fence. We were joining one of the regular workdays run by volunteers up at the reserve and were shown how to staple the new fencing onto the existing wooden posts before reinforcing the midsections by using twisted wire to connect the new fence to the old. With a bit of practice, the quality of these twists improved noticeably over the course of the session - as can be seen in the photograph above!

But fence repair was not our sole occupation today. While one group did a fantastic job of collecting 3 or 4 bags of litter from the bottom of the hill and neighbouring community garden a third group got cracking on some brambles and unwanted ash seedlings further round the hill. Liam in particular seemed to enjoy wielding a rather savage looking billhook - and was certainly give a healthy amount of space to do said wielding by his companions!

A last minute surge of wire twisting and a few helpings of blackberry crumble meant that we began our return a little later than planned so it was a rather hurried dash back to base but there was still time for a quick coffee for anyone heading on to the GG Bristol summer BBQ later.