The situation for Ewhurst LEAP working parties is still very unclear (at least to me); I will keep you informed if we can sensibly and safely start them again.

It was a quiet month last month, with little traffic and virtually no aeroplanes.  It has been lovely for the wildlife, as exemplified in Richard’s articles on the LEAP blog (Coming soon).

I hope the quietness will continue, and that you are all well and able to enjoy it too.  The Ewhurst LEAP working party will be having a month off, maybe more, while the current pandemic is so prevalent.

I hope that we can resume soon, or find suitable work that we can do separately, in the coming months.  I am looking forward to seeing you again.

I hope you are all well.  Despite the lock-down, at the beginning of this month a few of us from Ewhurst LEAP, and a larger number from Ellen’s Green, went litter picking for our weekend exercise.  We did not meet each other, but coordinated which roads were done.  Around Ewhurst these included the Shere, Peaslake, Holmbury and Ockley Roads, and the Ellen’s Green group did quite a few more.

Next month (in fact on Saturday 2nd May) Joanna has suggested that we clear up around the graves in the Civil Parish cemetery behind the Village Hall car park.  We should be able to do this and keep well apart.  Unfortunately you will have to bring your snacks and coffee with you.  It would also be better if you bring your own tools, and that we spread ourselves over the whole of Saturday.  If you want to borrow the (uncontaminated) LEAP tools I will be there with them at 10am.

If I don’t see you then, I wish you all safe and well for the rest of May.  Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is anything LEAP can help with, either personally or for the Village as a whole.

Here is a link to a list of all the plants found in the verge outside Leabrook this spring and summer. The original seeds were donated by relatives, neighbours and Ewhurst LEAP. Unfortunately the summer is over and most of the plants have been cut down to let their seeds settle on the ground. Hopefully they will come up again in the spring!

Many thanks to Anne Barrett-Lennard and friends for the list.

I hope you have all enjoyed the generally good weather over the summer. The recent rains and mild weather have meant that many paths are overgrown again!

For our 6th October working party, we will be tidying the paths in Ewhurst Green, to the west of the main road, towards Old House and Slythehurst. These are FP371 and FP440, which were noted by James as needing some clearing. If we have time we can check FP439 too.

Please bring your own gloves (and tools if you want). If coming by car I suggest you park beside the Cricket Ground on the Horsham Road.

I will be at the Cricket Ground at 10:00am on Saturday, and we will finish at midday as usual. At the moment the rain over the weekend is predicted for Saturday afternoon – let’s hope it doesn’t come earlier!

This Saturday morning we will be widening a footpath (FP 428) that Jean recently told me about. It has been almost cut off by a new fence and encroaching blackthorn. The path leads from the Ockley Road, on the way out of Ewhurst, to Bramblehurst Farm. We cleared the path last winter, but this was before the new fence was put up.

We will meet just before 10am on Saturday 1st September outside my house: Leabrook, Mapledrakes Road, GU6 7QP. I’ll have the LEAP tools, some snacks and coffee; we’ll finish at midday as usual. If you have any please bring your own tools too. For those that are unfamiliar with the path or my house here is a map:

We have had a lot of positive comments to the work done with Sayers Croft and the DofE participants (pictured here), I have passed them on to Sayers Croft but thanks again to all that helped. I am planning a different session with the October half term DofE group, but this can’t be confirmed yet.

Since the last blog entry we’ve been on a sponsored walk and had a stall at the Carnival. See our on-line pictures in our image gallery.

I have also been trying to find projects for us to do around the Village with help from Sayers Croft.

On Saturday (7th April) we will be doing a footpath survey around Ewhurst and cleaning up any litter that we find. I will hand out maps of the footpaths as usual and bags/litterpickers too.

Last weekend the Ellens Green litterpickers were out – but the weather could have been better. I hope they didn’t find too much! The weather for us this weekend doesn’t look bad at the moment, but the ground will be wet. We will not be checking any roads, only public footpaths and pavements next to roads. If a fair number of people turn up, we’ll check some other public areas too, such as the Ewhurst Rec.

In May we will be entering a ‘LEAP team’ for the Defeat Dementia Walk on Sunday 20th. It costs £20 per person to enter, less for children. You can subsidise the entry fee by being sponsored. Please reply to me if you will be joining our team.

Back to Saturday – we’ll meet at the Village Hall car park at 10am. We’ll have some coffee and snacks back at the car park at mid-day, where we will collect the bags of litter too.

I was planning a combined footpath survey and litter-pick for Ewhurst LEAP today (Saturday 3 March 2018), but the weather is not favourable. Unfortunately the covering of snow around the village is not good for litter-picking. With either frozen or thawing ground too the footpaths are slippery or impossibly boggy. Because of this I am postponing the footpath survey and litter-pick to the first Saturday of April.

Do read the article (reproduced in the previous blog) about LEAP and the Village pond.