We love to receive updates from the station adopters, especially with photos.

Here’s a message received from Katrina and Claude, who took over the project management of Arundel station gardening volunteers just a couple of months ago.

Dear Rowena, Darrell and Laura – we wanted to let you know of the great progress that has been achieved at the station in under two weeks. A total of 12 volunteers have been involved and have clocked up a total of 134 hours of bramble removal, weeding and, as of yesterday, soil improvement. In addition, we are incredibly grateful to Stubbs Woodyard for delivering four van loads of top quality soil conditioner completely for free.

We have received great support from Darrell and Laura at the station and we have been delighted by the positive comments from both visitors and residents. It has been a labour of love for all concerned.

I am delighted to let you know that Arundel Town Council has placed its faith in us and supported our funding request in full. This means that we will be ordering plants today to put in the ground by the end of the month. We will also be contracting with the Aldingbourne Trust to water on a weekly basis for up to a year from the beginning of May.

There is still some weeding/clearing to be done along the path next to the track, but that should happen soon.  We will be monitoring the area in front of the station this year to see what is already there (the display of daffodils was lovely) with a view to working on it next year. In the meantime, we will just tidy it up.

At some point, we will be installing a plaque to recognise our sponsors and supporters and will probably organise a small ceremony, which I hope you three will be able to attend. I want to reiterate our gratitude for your encouragement and for the invaluable practical and moral support that we have consistently had from Darrell and Laura.

One final thing. We will need to store £2,000 worth of plants securely at the station for a couple of days at the end of April. We have asked Darrell and Laura if they can come up with a solution, for which they may need your backing.

Thanks

Katrina and Claude