2:00 pm on Sunday 20th brought again Alex’s ever popular Christmas decoration event and was well attended again this year. The participants had the opportunity to make a wooden reindeer, large decorated fir cone, a decoration for their front door and a candle lit table decoration. Nearly all of the materials were either recycled or renewable.

Everyone got stuck in, not literally, but there was plenty of glue involved! At three o’clock it was time to make the hot chocolate drinks and the event finished on time at 3:30. This just left us to clear away the tools and leftovers.

Spotted today on the Firehills this 400 horsepower forestry mulcher making short work of the gorse. Looks like it won’t take long, so you’ll need to be quick if you want to see it in action. The signs say to keep 50m away which sounds very sensible. I stood well back and used my zoom to get this photo.

Today we re-opened a number of footpaths in Ecclesbourne Glen that have been closed due to landslips since the end of last year after having then only been open for about a month. This time we hope it will last a little longer. This was the culmination of many days work repairing culverts and steps, putting in a complete set of new steps, cutting back encroaching scrub and removing overhanging branches.

The coastal path from the East Hill to the bottom of Ecclesbourne Glen will remain closed indefinitely as it has been decided that the ground is too unstable to re-open it safely. This is shown on the map below in red and the re-opened paths in blue. The path shown in orange is also currently closed due to a collapsed culvert but will be open again once East Sussex County Council Rights of Way have replaced this with a footbridge as this is their responsibility.

To get from the East Hill to the coastal path east of Ecclesbourne Glen leave the East Hill via Rocklands Lane and head to Barley Lane car park and go through the gate closest to the parking ticket machine and go straight down to bollard 7, bear slightly right and go up to bollard 6, bear right and you are back on the coastal path.

The last couple of Thursdays we have discussed extending ourselves into Fridays as well and we have decided to give it a go. This will be on an ad hoc basis when want to finish a job off or take advantage of better weather perhaps and most likely decided at short notice. Anyone available on a Friday and wishing to join us, it would be best to contact us via email to see if we are working that day.

Next Thursday we’ll be reopening some of the footpaths on the eastern side of Ecclesbourne Glen, having carried out the necessary repairs and clearance. The coastal path on the western side however will still remain closed, probably indefinitely.

This year’s round of gorse scrub management has started today on the Firehills. Please take care and give the machinery a very wide berth. There are warning signs in place but the machinery will be moving between compartments and there will be traffic to and fro removing the arisings.

For your dog’s safety please put them on a lead as I did with mine today.

Tomorrow’s Conservation Day at Hastings Country Park will be a continuation of the Parrot’s Feather job, we’ll be doing a final rake to get the last little bits out and removing the arisings to the silage pits at the farm for composting.