By ‘C’:
The white
stuff is not something we can promise at any time. Indeed the weather outlook for Christmas Day
is mild, wet, and possibly quite windy.
Today,
however, it did not
just keep on raining.
On the contrary, the sun came out for the
first time in about a week, as if specially for Green Gym.
Hence the number of warm tops being discarded
after the initial chill of the morning:
The wet
stuff was merely the environment we were working in, for the main job was – as
always, it seems latterly, when we go to Ewelme – “a bit of channel
clearing.” The task was nominated by the
site warden on two grounds: a. “let’s not change a winning side”; b. the RV point is near the pub!
Opinions
among Green-Gymmers varied as to whether the winning side referred to was the
watercress on site. We have, after all,
worked on removing exuberant excess of growth here before. Last month, for instance …
and in
October 2015 (note Shepherd’s Hut PH in the background, top left) …
and November
2014 …
and so on,
almost back to the original founding of the group.
None of that
seemed to deter an impressive number of Green-Gymmers from volunteering for
more of the same in this last session of 2016.
– Though one old hand added the intriguing rider, “But I'll not be doing
any plodging.”
So, here we
were again …
and (those
who wished) slashed, raked, and plodged their way upstream. The instruction was, “Stop when you get to
the visitor centre” – that’s the first of the brick buildings in the background:
An extraordinary amount was achieved. Helped by the fact that our team today included three Canadian visitors, who’ve never done this before ...
There were
also some ‘servicing’ tasks ashore.
Some
of us took turns with landscaping the growing compost heap – only occasionally making
fools of ourselves, when a foot went in ankle-deep through the spoil
created by of a whole year of watercress clearing by different groups.
(And yes, often enough over the years, in such
circumstances Green-Gym thoughts have turned to the gentle wit of
Rabbi Blue of blessed memory.)
For those
who (entirely understandably) wanted to have nothing at all to do with the plodging, there was an
alternative task: moving woodland from one location to another. The idea was to create a natural screen on
one side of the pond, which we had helped to landscape earlier this year.
Proof
positive that we do undertake jobs other than channel-clearing at Ewelme. Back in April it was a question of moving
grassland from one location to another:
Since then
the pond-surround has matured nicely:
The
servicing task today was to dig out freshly-sprouting from one spot where it
would not have been very helpful …
and replant
it where it will do a useful job in the future:
At tea-break
we got to open an early Christmas present, courtesy of the home-baking skills
of a former regular member. (Thank you,
Kerry! And thank you to the rest of the
tea-crate team, who stepped up to the challenge of supplying sustenance to a
crew, which we knew would be large, but we didn’t know in advance how large.)
Best wishes
to all for the Xmas/New Year break!
