It's been some time..

So, since we last left.. Not a lot had happened down at The Dell whilst waiting to hear back from the Alec Dickson Trust for funding etc. just the odd case of litter picking and we had a big party to celebrate everyone who helped out down there and of course it tied in with my 25th!

Excellent night, one or two photo's floating around on here, asides that I have been focused on my college studies and my move to university where I will be studying forestry..

A load of bulbs for native flowers were planted in one of the borders which contained 2 hawthorn, 1 oak and 3 rowan trees. Clearly outlined as a border with sections of limbs. Some people who use the space had come down and decided to rip up the borders and use the space where the bulbs were planted to create a shelter to sit under. This space was no doubt a really good up-cycled den and the time and effort put into it must have been epic. The time and effort put into selecting bulbs/plants after researching what was missing, aerating the soil and planting them then carrying heavy sections of timber up a slope after spending all day cutting them up however outweighed this..
Not to mention that I suspect the den was only built as somewhere to sit due to the original communal area being absolutely destroyed, the benches burnt, the fire pit over flowing with cans, metals, plastics, wrappers, bits of wood from the borders etc. by making the den they have also snapped all the saplings in the process. All this was done in the matter of 2 weeks.

I got a message from a man who photographs wildlife (Richard Milligan) who wished to come and snap some wild things at The Dell. We both arranged for the 16th to be a good date to get down and have a wonder round. I then decided this would be a great opportunity for Friends Of The Dell to come down and drop in, drop out to help clean up the area and make it nice once again.

Between this date some people had gone down and done their bit in cleaning up, this effort was also ruined by people just taking the bin bags left for collection and burning them on the fire. This meant the collected rubbish just spilled out of the bags as soon as the bin bag had melted away.

On the day Rich took some lovely shots of insects, some of which he hadn't seen before and he said he will send them off to be identified. He also mentioned that if any of the species are rare The Dell will be able to get funding for fences to fence off the conservation areas! More than 15 wonderful chaps and chapettes turned out to show their skills and have good conversation. We completely restored the fire pit and extended it to allow for over spill and used the material from the den to create a huge bin cage in which we will be in touch with Knowsley Council to come to some arrangement for collection (hopefully).
Whilst we were there the group of people who had made the den showed up and wanted to know why we had taken it down. I explained as best as I could that The Dell is for everyone and if they'd had kept the fire area clean and tidy there would not have been a need to build a new area to sit. I asked them why they destroyed a bed of wildflowers, why they had snapped/ripped up whips, why they had ruined the borders, why they didn't take rubbish home.. In the calmest and nicest way possible I tried to reason with them. They seemed to understand which is good, I want The Dell to be enjoyed by everyone for the natural beauty it contains, for the fun it can inject into you, the mystical feeling you get from stumbling upon it.

If people want to build a den down there, lets do it! Lets apply for funding and build the best possible den The Dell will ever see! The only problem I have is destroying something on purpose to build when there is plenty of unused, uninhabited space to utilise. More of the group who made the den came over and stared at us from the top of the quarry, I would rather them have come down and talked about what is happening at The Dell and what it means for them as a place.

We have the power to come together and break down boundaries if they can just let us.

I will be up at The Dell on Friday night from around half 7. If anyone wishes to come up and have a mooch about or just sit and chat feel free :).

I hope the work that we do up there does not offend anyone and if you wish to ask anything don't hesitate to!

Remember The Dell is ours to share along side nature.

FOTD

P.S. I have lost my phone, this is why there has been such a long wait between the posts!