Thursday 22/10/26  I brought some wood from home for making and repairing things and rotten wood for getting bonfires going, we took it all to the mill and Eddie put it in the timber store and by the incinerator.

We didn’t light the fire in the wagon today but Eddie cleared the grate and put ash on the gardens, as it deters slugs and is good for the soil. The cosmos and yellow daisies are still upright and flowering after I put link stakes around them last week.

We had a cup of tea in the wagon and saw a grey wagtail on the trench wall which flew up onto the wagon roof. Emma joined us and we watched blue tits eating peanuts on the camera screen, then I went outside and got photos of them.

Edd Smith of BBC Radio Norfolk visited today, so we put the information boards out. I went to collect Edd and showed him around the mill, he has a feature called 'Where's Your Edd At', where listeners try to guess where he is. Edd thought the mill would make a good mystery location after I asked Radio Norfolk to publicise our open days.

I was interviewed by Edd about the history of the mill and how I got involved. I introduced Edd to Emma and Eddie and they had a chat, then I took him back to The Maltings. The interview was broadcast on Monday 26/10/26 at around 9:15am, the whole programme is now available on iplayer for 28 days.

When I got back to the mill Eddie and Emma had put the signs away and Emma had weeded the newly seeded area which has lots of growth, then strimmed nettles and tidied the railway wagon. 

The painting of the water wheel we were given at Mills Weekend has been framed, so Eddie moved the horse bridle on display in the visitor centre and put up the painting in its place, which looks good. Eddie also filled the bird food.

Eddie had taken the loppers home again as they were still not cutting properly, he ground the levers away to make them close fully and tried them out on some overhanging brambles today, they now cut much better.

It was too cold for lunch outside so we sat in the wagon. In the afternoon we all dug out one of the compost bays as its been in use since late 2021, we filled 7 sacks with compost, then I got a builders bag from the compound and we half filled it but its too heavy to move. I stacked the compost sacks in the compound for use on our gardens.

In 2024 we planted 3 oak trees in the meadow and watered them through the summers, one died so I brought another but that also died. We went to the meadow to assess them today, the one near the slope is doing well, the other is smaller but healthy. There is no sign of the others apart from the support pole from the tree I brought.

Thursday 29/10/26  We planned to bring the forklift to take the builders bag of compost to The Maltings, but trees would need cutting along the track to clear the forklift mast. Fortunately Fred had already brought the bag back, saving us a lot of work. This compost will be used on Beryl's gardens, we kept some for our gardens at the mill.

We brought the mower today for what will probably be the last cut of the year. It was a damp foggy start to the day so we left the grass to dry before cutting it as there were plenty of other things to do.

Eddie lit the fire and put sausage rolls in the oven, its our winter tradition to have hot sausage rolls. We brought more logs in to keep the fire going, then filled the bird feeders and topped up their drinking water, we noticed a swan in the river beside us.

I printed and laminated the latest historic picture and put it on the notice board in the visitor centre, then got the ladder and took the front off of the great tit nest box as the camera picture was still not very clear. I used a damp cloth to clean the camera lens and tilted the camera down so the nest box hole is not in view which was making the picture darker, it looks slightly better now.

The water butt used for filling the water tank for the toilet flush was leaning over badly so I emptied it so it could be put back level, it took a while to empty. I levelled the base using pieces of wood and put the water butt back and it now sits upright. Eddie refitted the gutter feeding into the other water butt as it had come off.

Some of the fences had blown down in the high winds so we stapled the fencing tape onto the posts and made a new base for one of the posts which was rotten and had fallen over.

Anne Marie brought love-in-a-mist seeds and sprinkled them on the garden in front of the visitor centre, then used one of the sacks of compost we dug out last week on the garden and watered it.

The grass had dried so I mowed the large lawn which cut well, then we had our hot sausage rolls for lunch in the wagon. Eddie cut the rest of the grass in the afternoon.

The wildlife habitat gets overgrown quickly so I strimmed in front of it and cut Ivy away, I checked the hedgehog entrance was clear and filled some of the gaps with old rotten wood which insects like. My next job was strimming nettles in the corner of the lawn next to the meadow while Eddie put a post in to mark the small oak tree.

Then we mowed the bottom of the slope next to the picnic bench and moved it across to its new position, as the rest of the area will be left as a grass meadow, we saw toadstools there. Then we loaded the mower into the trailer and came back. 

Our next open days will be September 2027 as we'll now open just once a year, as the weather is usually better, with higher attendance and less chance of birds nesting in the water wheel. We also get much better support from Heritage Open Days than from SPAB who organise Mills Weekend in May. Dates will be known nearer the time.

Graham Bartlett

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