When Katherine and I visited the woodland on 2nd February we were dismayed to find the noticeboard lying on the ground in a damaged state, one of the posts was rotten at the base with the other snapped off. At first we thought someone might have accidentally reversed into it. However, looking more closely it appears to have been vandalism, confirmed by the fact that someone had also had a go pushing over the noticeboard at the other ends of the woodland near the A49.
We took the noticeboard back to my workshop for repair and refurbishment. It was mainly OK but door had come apart and its bottom rail was quite rotten, so I made a new bottom rail and glued the door frame back together. Finally I took the opportunity to give the whole thing a clean-up, rub down and two fresh coats of paint.
Meanwhile, the noticeboard on the wall of the village hall was giving trouble with the door sticking badly. I had hoped I could just nip along, whip the door off and take a few millimetres of the bottom with a plane. But the screws were rusted in and the door wouldn’t come off so I ended up screwing the noticeboard off the wall and taking that one back to my workshop too. When I finally did get the door off I found it was falling apart. With a certain feeling of déjà vu, I glued the door back together and gave whole thing a clean-up, rub down and two fresh coats of paint.
Finally, on the 17th April, sinking two new posts in the ground, Katherine and I put the noticeboard back in place at the entrance to the woodland, and put the other noticeboard back on the Village Hall.
Stephen Hutchinson
