Mote Park

A lovely, fresh summer's morning, clear skies no milkyness at all. Just right for our morning walk into town for the usual coffee and collect a few items. Must be something going on in the Park next week as workers were busy errecting a huge fence around a stage, the organisers obviously don't want people looking in on the event.

I had an interesting exchange with the owner of the Mote Park Facebook page. The Council have decided to impose a £1.00 car parking charge for visitors with the funds being used to improve and maintain the Park. There were plenty of views on this decision but I was sceptical about the money being used on the Park and the fact that many areas of the Park were going wild. I thought that this was owing to cost cutting, but it turns out that it's a definite plan to let many areas grow wild. They've divided the Park up into 30 parcels and are managing these areas in partnership with wildlife organisations, even to the extent of hand pulling sapling trees from areas where they don't want trees to grow.

I'm all for this, if it is part of an overall plan, because in parks wildlife areas need to be managed to prevent them turning to scrub, then trees and eventually back to woodland. What's needed though are some interpretative boards explaning what's being done or you'll get more people like me thinking the Park is getting neglected.

Anyway, this view is of the more manicured part of the Park and very nice it is too, with boats on the lake and people enjoying themselves on the water.

The afternoon was spent at the allotment, picking goosberries and blackcurrants, pulling up all the broadbeans (which haven't been anywhere near as great as last year) and with Susan's help doing more unending weeding.