Murderers!

Thursday 24th June 2021

We went back to Nailsworth to do the first day of the dry stone walling course. While everyone got on with building the wall, we needed to clear the next section. Mattocks, shovels and a lot of hard work! We cleared about 3 meters and then laid the foundations for the next stretch. It was the hardest physical days work that I can remember. When I started the course I was slightly worried that I wouldn't be able to manage some of the physical work - and I do ache all over but I did also manage it! So not bad!

The area was a mess so it had become the home of a lot of wildlife and unfortunately we did a good job of disturbing and killing them. We managed to rescue about 5 slow worms and rehome them - some really small babies which were cute but fast! We also managed to slice in two several more of them - that made us feel really bad. Then we disturbed a bee nest which we had to relocate but some of the adults kept coming back to the original spot - that made us feel bad as well. Then we disturbed a mouse nest and killed a baby mouse - agghhhh!! Now feeling like murderers. It did teach me a lesson, there was no way that we could conserve the wall without disturbing and killing some of the wildlife - there is always a tricky decision to be made.