Understandably, many people are away on holidays at this time and given the exceptionally wonderful weather today, we were only seven volunteers. So we decided to concentrate on the lower path which is in the shade and close to the only river which still contains a trickle of water. We ensured all the contaminated ash which we cut last week was carefully bagged up and we checked to see if the marked trees were still clear of the ash die-back fungus – chalara. It was a very hot morning and energy levels soon ran down but the woodland had a peace and calmness about it that made a refreshing start to a very English summers day.