Trees

Dave, Ryan, Sean, Shaune and Rick, The Tree Guys

So yesterday as I was coming into school I noticed that the Tree men were in. They are removing some trees to open up the space and also taking ivy and dangerous branches off of the trees around the site.

It already looks amazing. Well not that amazing but it had made a huge difference to the level of light in the Wilderness already.

They will be here all week taking down Ivy and tidying up the trees. This means that we are well on our way to making the wilderness a really great community space.

Oh I forgot that Microsoft also came in on a 2 day Team building trip (this was sooo much better than paintballing or a spa weekend that they usually go on!) They did an amazing job of cleaning the place up. Ooh and BCTV came in and started the living hedges on the perimeters of the site. They look pretty good to me

So much has happened in a short space of time.

May try and make the blogs more interesting or get them ghost written by Mrs. Burridge. Now she is funny.

NEWTS!!!!

Mr Toad on top of Mrs Toad. aahhhh

A smooth newt

Kevin the Newt Man

So we thought there was nothing in the Wilderness. But I went down to meet Kevin the Newt man (I think that actually is his name) It was so exciting!!

We found Newts, Toads and heard Tawny Owl calls and this was between 5 and 7 in the evening.

Even though we found newts the pond still needs work. It is not the right shape for the newts and the liner will disintegrate if it stays out in the sunlight.

It was so exciting being in the wilderness with someone who know what he was looking for. It is something I think all the kids as well parents at the school would love.

The Wilderness

Jan 19 2010 - Glen Harding, Alison Sen, Matthew Morey, Claire Briggs

Woohoo This is my first ever foray into the world of blogging. For a person who doesn't even facebook this is a big deal, but I thought it would be a great way to share with you all just what is happening.

So the Wilderness in Hampton Wick has been there for ages, but for the last 10 years has been neglected, and as a woodland, it needs to be managed.

Heidi came and asked me to produce a plan and have it costed within a week if I remember rightly. I did point out to her that I had 3 children under 8 and that one of them was still with me all the time but anyhoo one week later and a little bit tired from all night stints of drawing and crumpling up paper we had a plan.

Some friends of mine Richard and Graham (Landscape Contractors) kindly came a long and gave us a vague quote and all of this was just to secure the funding for the project from the council. Pheweee!!

Anyway we secured funding and then it really started. We had 8 meetings with various groups and interested parties from the 7th of November and the 8th of December 2009.

These included:

Me - Garden Designer and Mum (Interest - Not destroying the ecosystems and creating something special)

Heidi Johnson-Paul - Head Teacher of HWINS (Interest - making it as safe and educational)

Richard and Graham - Contractors - looking at site and job for quote.

Alison Sen - Richmond Ecology Officer (Main interest - the site as a whole)

Alison Fure - Richmond Ecology Officer (Main Interest - bats and large mammals)

Richard Pain - Architect (Dad at the school and some kind of Govenor)

Glen Harding - Richmond Arboricultural Manager (Main interest trees and loss of habitat)

Simon Rose - BCTV (British Conservation Trust Volunteers)

Alex Robb - London Wildilfe Trust

Claire Briggs - Richmond Council

There were lots of people with lost of agendas and I was finding it difficult to work out where we went from here.

But over Christmas I asked for all the interested parties to get together and let us know what the priorities were for the work to go forward.

Jan 19th 2010 we had a meeting with Glen, Alison Senn, Claire and Matthew Morey (school Govenor and Project Manager) with myself there (Heidi couldn't come as there was an ofsted inspection also happening at the same time.)

We decided that we needed a newts survey in the pond and a date for tree works to start. Woohoo we can move forward!!!