Staying Treatwise

You know it’s getting close to something called ‘Christmas’ when the elements of crib scenes, crafted by small persons in their junk-modelling sessions, start accumulating in dark corners of parish-church window ledges, ready to be brought out at the right time:

Recycled items looking suspiciously like old egg boxes and ping-pong balls

Much preparation before we could get seriously underway, was a theme of our session this morning.  The task was to clear ash trees, which had been felled for the sake of preserving rare reed-fen habitat.  (“Ash trees we have plenty of,” commentated site staff.)  Before we could move logs, however, there was brash to take to the bonfire:

I was assured, when it came to my turn to carry my share of brash, that I looked “like a scene from Macbeth.”  [Act V Scene iv.]  Then we could attend to manhandling the serious timber – treading terribly carefully so as not to damage Loddon Lilies putting in an early appearance on account of the dull, but unseasonably mild weather:

Meanwhile, at the fire-site: no bonfire!   Clearance work had to be done first:

When the fire was started, there were two very different loads to be alternated: brash; and the reeds which had been cut as part of the cyclical reed-fen management.

It was the damp reeds which generated an impressive column of smoke:

This in turn generated much chatter among Green-Gymmers having a tea-break:

“They’ll be able to see that in North America.”

“They’ll be able to see it on the International Space Station.”

“I wonder if he’s in orbit yet.” [Ed: interesting that we all knew that ‘he’ meant Tim Peake, first official UK astronaut, whose rocket, even as we were speaking, was in fact safely on its way.]  

“It takes 8 minutes to get into space.”

“It takes longer than that to get to Goring.”

“Ah, but you don’t really want to get to Goring.”

Tea-break was especially luxurious thanks to two Green-Gymmers.  Chief Engineer Andy (aka “Chief Bodger”, on the right below) had ‘repaired’/ fundamentally re-built the site’s trolley:

This was promptly pressed into service:

“Andy wanted to use it for carrying logs, but I said NO!”

And the treats included Cadbury’s Cherry-Ripes, brought 12,000 miles all the way from Australia:

You can tell they’re not from this country, because the pack bears a label with wording which was new to me:

Be treatwise

Enjoy a balanced diet

Green-Gymmers would, I think, add “Enjoy a balanced programme of exercise too!” 

I also hope that this morning’s work-out was a thoroughly enjoyable element of everyone’s exercise regime – as well as being useful for preservation of rare reed-fen.