Mess by the Oak Tree

This weekend despite not feeling well I went along to crew at LRP event at Shining Cliff Wood and found the much of the west end devastated by woodland maintenance. The signs says they a clearing the softwoods to allow a hardwood forest to re-establish itself, this may be great in the long term but they have stripped vast areas of trees totally and thinned the other area so much they are hard to describe as woodland anymore.

From a entry gate at Higgs Lane to the Shinning Cliff hostel car park run 2 paths, the upper path is still a nice place to walk, the lower path is not, stripped of trees, and then the path bulldozed through the debris leaving loose boulders its a place to avoid and will take many years to grow back into nice walk. The end which did have a nice leafy clearing with a oak tree in middle as been halved in sized, given a nice new footbridge, but the hillside behind has been fully cleared of all tree and was full of the noise of chains saws cutting down more, a large logging company seems to have established a base on the road up alongside the wood.

Once past the east end of the wood into the hostels area things are still untouched and protected by owners so will remain that way.

The bottom path, it looks like this from the area we park in all the way to the Hostel car park.


The old oak tree clearing which was full of atmosphere as been reduced to this.


The back drop has been cleared of trees.


The event itself went well, it was 3 or 4 degrees C which did not feel that cold and dry on Saturday, Sunday it did drizzle then rain at the end of the day, so my costumes got very damp and muddy. The players got into things even if the event was designed to keep them moving, fighting and thus warm, its not the time of year for long outdoor negotiations, although their seemed plenty of things to discuss.

AndyL who wrote the plot had now way of knowing what the players would do Sunday with many optional paths so we had to have many contingency plans and quick costume changes at the ready.

Two mountain bikers nearly came off as they rounded a bend and spotted 2 Gaisha in the wood trying to seduce a chaos mage.


Sam forgot her hair brush, I thought she would make a good Ronald McDonald.



I finished the weekend feeling much fitter than I started with the running around clearing up my listlessness, but the downside was the my cough got worse as the mucus settled on my chest and I think as set itself up for a long stay.