Tuesday 27 September 2016

Not Just Another Gig in the Sticks



By ‘C’

A return visit today to one of our favourite places.  Plus a welcome chance to meet one half of the new site-warden team.  (Hello, Roger: we look forward to many more sessions working with you.)

‘Withymead’ – or ‘Anne Carpmael Charitable Trust Nature Reserve’, to give it its full name – is barely in the sticks, being so close to Goring village, although you are hardly aware of that when you are there.  It is also another of those places visited by more than one Green-Gym.  What was going to be today’s main task (which turned out to be today’s
only task) was around the boardwalk.  Much (or all?) of the ‘hardware’ was originally constructed by Sonning Common Green-Gym: a project on a scale we have not tackled.  There is nothing wonky about the hard construction, but the natural soft-landscaping would, if allowed to, take over completely. 

This is as far as the reeds had advanced over this last summer:

Our job was to cut them back, so that people do not have to struggle on an overgrown path, or even feel like they’re running through the jungle:

It was a mission which called for shears, sickles, rakes, brooms, wheelbarrows, and some ingenuity to reach beside/under the boards:


For the most part, the ground was solid enough underfoot.  The fen did, however, have one or two surprises to spring on the unwary:
One of the places where one learned whether footwear described by the manufacturer as ‘waterproof’, really is. 
(Answer is: YES)


Transporting cuttings, along the narrow boardwalk to the compost heap, was also interesting in places.  The loads were light enough in weight, but not the easiest to pack into a barrow:
“Wide load coming through!”
– “Aren’t you supposed to have flashing amber lights?”
– “Or one light either side, red and green, to show how wide the vessel is?”
Before the session, at least one volunteer had been rhapsodising about the special quality of the sunlight in September-October, and how lovely the season is.  I can certainly agree about the golden days of autumn:

that blessed season between the harshness of winter and the insincerities of summer; a trustful season when one buys bulbs and sees to the registration of one’s vote, believing perpetually in spring and a change of Government.

(Saki, in case you’re wondering; writing of course long before there were such things as fixed-term parliaments in this country; aka L/Sgt H H Munro, killed in action during the last days of the Battle of the Somme, 14 November 1916.)

Alas, we saw barely anything of the sun at Green Gym today.  The DiY weather forecast the evening before (sticking one’s head out of the window and having a look at the sky for oneself) …
had been considerably more promising than the scientifically-calculated Met Office prediction.  Unfortunately, the Met Office advice proved to be correct: the sky remained tenaciously overcast all morning.  Good Green-Gym weather is promised for tomorrow, but that will be too late except for drying togs which will have been put through the washing machine.  Never mind: the outside temperature was ideal for the amount of exercise we were getting; and the rain-shower arrived at 1 o’ clock, after session end.

Whether working as lone operatives, or in ad-hoc small teams, the volunteers kept at it, but still managed to find time for the WGG brand of humour:
What the joke was here, I don't know

And Roger seemed well pleased with the results of our labours:
Before
After
Before
Look where we’ve been!

Tuesday 20 September 2016

A week’s worth of work in one morning



By the Session Leader:

Had we brought our sleeping bags? – was how the site warden greeted us this morning, adding that there was about a week’s work for us to do. 

One look at the ‘stream’ confirmed the scale of the task in hand:
All watercress, and not a free-running water channel in sight!  Our mission was to put that right.

Why us?  This particular task, we – apparently – do “better than Sonning Common Green-Gym.”  At any rate, our volunteers promptly got stuck in (thankfully, not literally stuck in the occasional patch of mud on the stream bed):

Several Green-Gymmers observed that the cress this year is remarkably “leggy” and “tanglesome”.

It’s hard work, chopping and heaving soggy watercress, and we aren’t called Gym for nothing.  Everyone was very warm despite damp clothes by tea time, but relentlessly cheerful:

There were occasions when a casual observer might have been uncertain as to whether Green-Gymmers were closely considering the next target for vegetation clearance, or looking for wildlife (or signs of buried treasure):


For wildlife, we saw tiny fry, and even a fish about 3 inches long, probably a stickleback; and a heron flew over, inspecting us.  We also found some slug (or maybe snail) eggs, which we photographed alongside a tuppenny bit, so you can see the scale:


Anyone watching us may also have noticed that after tea-break, several volunteers took a little time out to admire the new pond.  We feel quite proprietorial about the pond, because it was we who cut, and wheelbarrowed some distance through the village, the turf for the sides.  The pond has subsequently acquired a viewing/dipping platform, and is now looking quite mature:



Then it was back to work!  You know when a session is at last winding down when there’s a queue of three barrows waiting to be filled …
while those volunteers working in the water are ‘sieving’ the stream for the last bits of cut watercress which had escaped being landed and carted off to the compost heap:


We had not, of course, cleared the whole of the watercourse, but had completed one big section.  It was a good start to what will clearly be an ongoing job over the autumn:
Before
After






















Postscript from ‘C’:
What the session leader modestly did not comment on, was how involved she personally was in the effort of the day.  Particularly when the growing compost heap was becoming unmanageable for volunteers on wheelbarrow-delivery duty:
Leader pitching in (with pitchfork)
Leader getting hands-on