We're over half way through our winter sessions in Wick Wood. There's been a good turn out from a bunch of nice people, with all degrees of experience from nil to lots. You can still squeeze into one of the few spare slots this Sunday or Sunday 3rd March if you contact Russell. This is a brilliant excuse to spend a day playing in the woods. The work keeps you warm whatever the weather, as does the free hot lunch.

How to choose the right tool and use it safely. Our toolkit comes from the Community Tree Nursery.

You start with this, a hazel that's been coppiced some years ago and is due for harvesting. In the right foreground you can see the first year's re-growth of shoots on last winter's coppicing.

And you end with this – a coppice stool that will produce fresh wood for use in a few years' time

About halfway through the job (this is a willow we cleared to give the hazels more light)

Do your snedding as you go -- trimming the side shoots to leave a tidy stack of useable poles. Everything else goes into the dead hedge.

Hot soupy stew and three (yes three) kinds of homemade cake to meet most diets

Kate shows off her perfect pole

A few days later, local biologist Annie, and Ruby who is just getting the idea of walking, take a stroll in the woods and try out our newly built greenwood bench by the dead hedge. “It's good to see the woods being managed,” says Annie.