Meeting in a Mist

By C

Now this would have been the weather for today:

Glorious!  If it were like that for All Saints, there’d be no complaints.

Unfortunately, that golden warmth and the scent of fresh-mown grass were yesterday afternoon: Hallowe’en.  Ha!  Today, 1 November, started misty and mysterious: ideal for evoking a sense of the mildly spooky or alchemist-y?  By session-start, climatic conditions had evolved into the merely dark and dank.  Still mild, though (“a good temperature to be working in”) and not, of course, nearly comparable to the murk experienced elsewhere in the world.

With every excuse to be a slightly dispirited bunch of saints-under-construction this morning, Green-Gymmers were commendably determined not to let the mood be de-railed by a spell of inopportune weather.  A slate of tasty tasks helped, plus the new-experience value of our first session at this site under the direction of the new warden-team.  Our new boss (when we’re at this site: Anne Carpmael Charitable Trust) definitely believes in leading from the front:

These were the tasks in hand today – a nice range, so that all participants could find the right level and variety of exercise for them:

҉   Improving visitor-access

The target here was a new path between bridleway and study centre.  The project had been started by another group: they had got as far as laying scalpings, but that section still needed the top surface adding.  There was also scope to widen the path-line for easier wheelchair-access.  That involved first of all a lot of digging …

then placing carpet, scalpings, and top layer:

Finally the new surface was levelled, to put the finishing touch on a “really neat” job …

and proud workers (well some of them) assembled for a rare posed Green-Gym portrait:

҉   Habitat construction

The aim was to build a reptile bank in the otherwise under-used patch of ground between the back of the study centre and the railway embankment.  This too involved first of all a lot of digging:

The first phase of construction was to hollow out a large pit – stripping the turf, then excavating the soil – and filling in the hole with a layer of rubble, then logs:

The second phase – which drew in Green-Gymmers from the other tasks – was to cover over with earth, and top with turf:

“Bronze-age burial mound” or “snakarium”?

The plot had been carefully marked out so that the side with entrance-points faces south.  So that it can be warmed by the sun.  When there is any.

Both of those jobs involved much transporting and handling of materials.  This made for an excellent opportunity for one volunteer to try out a new pair of good thick (dragonhide?) gloves:

The third task, which some volunteers alternated with other jobs, was:

҉   Weeding

This may not sound attractive, but ‘weeding’ here meant working in one of the woodland areas, and removing unwanted/excess sycamore seedlings:

That a wizard time was had by all, is no mystery.  And the forecast for tomorrow is for it to be like this: