Wallingford Green Gym: Rock and Roll at Castle Meadows

By a volunteer

It may have been one of the range of ‘eats’ at tea-break which resulted in a crop of ‘roll’ puns among those present at the session:

At one point, I thought I heard someone say something about “chocolate voles!” That may, however, have been just the product of an over-active imagination plus the fact that what we were doing was for the benefit of water voles.

The task was to clear scrub which had gradually been making a comeback along a ditch which our group had cleared many years before:

It was slightly disconcerting that, being around a steep ditch, one could find oneself looking down on a fellow-volunteer who was working further down the slope:

It was a slightly dull day to be working in the great outdoors, and perhaps not the most exciting job we have ever done:

All the same, it was good exercise. Here for the core muscles and shoulder-girdle,
as demonstrated by our session-leader leading by example:

What a good roll model!

The 11th man in the team of volunteers was Charlie, who clearly saw it as his duty to watch over us, come what may:

Then he got tired. (As did several others of us.) In the second half of the session, first he sat on guard:

Then he lay on guard:

Finally he wandered over for a cuddle:

Like me, he was covered in burrs from head to toe!

The results of our efforts were, however, plain to see. Let’s hope the water voles like it:

Before

After

The session leader adds:

This is the creature whose home and habitat we were saving:

They like to have water – and our ditch was virtually dry. It was, however, just as well that the ditch was dry, as it allowed these two members to climb in and seriously coppice a willow, which was growing in the middle of the channel: