New items in the dressing-up box

In the best of Green-Gym tradition, because last week we were @ Earth Trust, planting trees, this week we were back @ Natural England, taking trees out. 

Continuing where we had left a fortnight before, the task was, quite simply:

“More of the same please!”

So it was a matter of sawing and lopping, dragging brash, and carrying logs.  Also a certain amount of waiting while site warden deployed chainsaw to take out a tree which was just slightly out of our league:

Green Gym waits while warden saws tree

Green Gym and warden wait for wind to blow over sawn tree

Minutes later, site warden found power-saw was not up to task of reducing fallen tree to make it stable (something about “tension and compression”), and was asking for loan of hand saw from Green-Gymmer: 

At tea-break there were some shiny new toys to play with.  Perhaps contrary to expectations, the tool-fairy didn’t produce out of the tool-bag a batch of the new-pattern lightsaber for forestry work.  Nor Darth-Vader style helmets.  Just three shiny new ‘standard safety helmets’, one each of blue, white, and red:

He says he chose those colours deliberately, not to be patriotic, but so that people could remember which they had used – and adjusted to their size.  Also, of course, to distinguish them from the old (now reserve) helmets, which are yellow.

Over tea-break volunteers could be spotted trying on the Gucci hard-hats.  Some had to be observed very cautiously, from afar:

Others were happy to pose:

The main objection to the new headgear appeared to be that it does nothing to keep the head warm.  Especially the ears.  There is a certain incompatibility between warm hat and hard hat.

After tea C sloped off, muttering something about having to get home in order to let in a college tutor to inspect the excellence of the pipe-work recently done on the premises by an apprentice plumber.  (“The things Green Gym has to play second fiddle to!”)  A far more obvious tactical reason for C disappearing was a slight slip-up in the organization of the weather for the morning.  It was cold up on the Chilterns scarp; and by the time C retired, rain was on the breeze.  The sunshine, to which we have grown accustomed at Green Gym, was forecast for Wednesday morning.

Ah well, as several volunteers observed, it is now officially winter.  In my own village it is apparently Christmas Eve already, for there is “breaking news” (flyer posted through letterbox) that “Santa’s Sleigh” will be passing through on Wednesday 3 December.  Has anyone told him he’s a bit early?  If previous experience is anything to go by, he will not be on a sleigh drawn by reindeer: he’ll be squeezed into a float which is bedecked with flashing coloured lights and an array of loudspeakers belting out ‘Xmas music’, any aesthetic value of which will be entirely negated by the decibel level – with the whole thing perched on the back of a pick-up truck of monstrous horse-power.

Perhaps it is something to do with the different pace of life in the countryside, but there does appear to be a certain amount of confusion about when Christmas is this year.  Not even the Church knows, for according to another flyer posted through our letterboxes, there are to be services “Christmas Eve Wed 23 December” and “Christmas Day Thurs 24 December”.  Oh dear!

It is very much to be hoped that no such confusion of mind afflicts our quiz team this evening.  I wish the WGG squad all the best for this evening’s contest chez Earth Trust!