10/10/2026
October Workday report
Drizzly windy weather to begin with in the morning. We thought it would be a wash out, but luckily the bad weather blew over and the sun came out. Quite thundery weather last few days actually.
A few of our regular friends and volunteers had to cancel coming over today with good reasons, so we were down to just 4 people ; Lynda, Charlotte, Andrew and myself.
Advertising for new volunteers drew a blank - no one new dared to venture along today; in fact for a Saturday, the park was very quiet as a whole. Only one dog walker spotted during the whole day's work. Guess the soggy weather wasn't everybody's cup of tea.
The leaf fall was worse than I anticipated. Must have come down heavy just this week. Paths were lost in leaves. So, as advertised, that was main task today.
We started at the park entrance and bridge, then split into two teams to tackle each of the Vale paths.
Up top end of Vale Grove, at the Katsura tree, the distinctive aroma of burnt sugar gives this special feature tree its alternative name of toffee apple tree. It was planted in 2013 by Roger Griffith and has grown a good size now within the confines of Andy Lennie's Olympic wheel garden area at the top of the path. The autumn leaves have a pinky yellow colour, most have already fallen.
After lunch, we tackled the bottom half of the Vale View streamside path and fernery . This took a good lot of work. I hoovered up the piles of leaves with lawnmower to store overwinter in builders bags to create a leaf mould mulch.
Please be aware the boardwalk has a couple of rotten areas. They will be replaced with new timber as soon as spare timber becomes available.. There are no funds to get any. Need some 5ft offcuts of 6x2 planks.
Some rogue Himalayan Balsam stems on the other side of the stream were spotted and removed. Bankings were very slippy so a few bits escaped as out of reach. We thought we'd got it all earlier in the year, but these ones have grown up to flowering stage so quickly from virtually nothing, just in the last month or so.
Thanks to everyone who worked hard today, we were at it a good four hours of activity.
If you read all this so far, please consider coming along next month and helping us to keep the park looking good. It's very rewarding, not always hard work, and you can learn so much about nature and the seasonal changes each month . All our efforts over the years I still take great pride in, as I'm sure we all do.
The hall is also still crying out for new committee or it will face closure. So much potential still in Barrmill, the hall deserves to be a thriving hub of activity. It's still a great wee hall. There should be much more to life than just watching TV or going out working, so please, everyone out there, especially those from Barrmill who follow the page, use it or lose it. Time is running out fast now.
