Last Tuesday before Christmas ...

By the Session Leader:

… a good turn-out for Green Gym, and a fun cold day out in the sun.  “A glorious day, even if it was a couple of hours before I could feel my toes,” reported one volunteer. 

The forecast had been for dense fog.   Instead I woke to a crisp day with just a slight mist: just right for Green Gym, even though the ground was frozen.  First thing there was still a trace of mist across the Thames facing the sun, but beautifully clear ahead.

We had five tasks lined up for us, but with plenty of members available we were able to split up and tackle all the jobs simultaneously.  The snag was that the photographer didn’t manage to get to catch all the tasks as they were progressing.

The most urgent task was to spread wood chippings on the mud by the gates by the river.

It was surprising how much mud there was around as there hadn’t seemed to have been that much rain lately.  (The lock keepers would not agree: they have been very busy in the last couple of weeks, constantly adjusting weir gates.)  Anyway, chippings had to be barrowed a fair way over to the gate by the river, and spread over the mud.

There was still some scrub to finish cutting down where we had been working the last time we were here.

This area was then clear:

Scrub from last time plus today’s had then to be dragged through and piled inside the wooded area:

The cattle had been using one gatepost as a rubbing post so this one was loose, but not rotten.  A task we are very familiar with. 

Thankfully, it was not a post which had been installed by WGG!  This was evident when we found that it had been set in with earth, not chalk or stones.  Moreover, the catches were not lining up properly.

When we had dug out enough of the earth, we were unable to find enough stones to set the post properly.  Fortunately, the local cattle made up for their having created the problem in the first place by being part of the solution.  For some reason, their drinking trough had a layer of stones at the bottom – dropped in, it was suggested, by visiting children.  So the post was realigned and tamped in with our new tamping tool.

Meanwhile, the fire raising team had managed to get a fire going even with the damp wood.

A big pile of scrub for the fire, the work of a previous group, dwindled to this …

with the larger logs being barrowed away to go back to Earth Trust to keep them warm:

While we were busy green-gymming, the site warden had taken on a task we are not allowed to do: using a petrol-driven hedge-trimmer to top the hedge by the pond.

A most satisfying end to the day: we had been given five possible tasks, and we had finished every one, even the fire.

Ice Stopped Play

 By ‘C’:

Superficially, today may have looked like perfect Green-Gym weather.  After wintry storms at the weekend, this:

The trouble was that after all the wet stuff falling out of the sky, there had not been time, or sufficiently high temperatures, for a thorough thaw everywhere before clear skies meant the mercury fell starkly.  As it is wont to do in this part of the country. 

Actually it was not a deep overnight frost by South-Oxon standards: only down to -8.8 Celsius.  (As recorded at the nearest weather station: RAF Benson, 07:00).  It has to be at least double-digit negative for folks in my village to start admitting that it is “a bit cold.” 

Nevertheless, it was quite chilly enough to ensure that it would be seriously slippery underfoot on site.  This is what it was like riverside opposite the town after which our group is named:

Where we had been scheduled to work, however, perches on the Chilterns scarp, some 500’ above the Thames Valley floor.  The situation on the ground there: quite different.  Green Gym is fun, but, in the words of the reserves-manager who is on the spot: “it is not worth putting people at risk with the travel, weather conditions, and site hazards.”

Thus, with reluctance – we do not like admitting being defeated by the elements – we cancelled the session.  So what to do instead?

Go to ‘real gym’?  [Where discussion between people working out has been about whether ‘Die Hard’ is really a Christmas movie. – Ed.]  Well one of our members did, and here is the photo to prove it – the nearest we could get to a group-use of the time today was for us each to do our own thing, then those of us with digital cameras share our images.

“Not such a ‘greengym’.”
– “No, but a much warmer one.”

There were several ‘green threads’ running through the “What I did this morning” replies which came into my Inbox.  Many of us had opted for a walk.  Properly kitted out, of course, before venturing beyond the ice curtain:

For some, initial views from the inside were decidedly wintry:

“Any stakes or binders here?”

“Silent vigil”

But it was certainly well worth the effort to get into the Great Outdoors if one could.  At Little Meadow (where we have occasionally worked sessions) “the grasses.were.frosted”:

Contrast last time one of us was there on Green-Gym business:

Souvenirsde nos beaux jours de l’été

Rubbish featured in several Green-Gymmers’ experiences.  The commodity, that is; not a value judgement on the morning.  I myself began, as always on a Tuesday (as soon as I am dressed in outdoor togs), by wheeling bins from addresses along the terrace-row where I live.  Then lining them up kerbside ready for collection:

Except that this time I had first checked on the council website that householders were supposed to put their bins out as normal; 26-tonne dustbin-lorries will not be able to make it along some of the roads in the area.  Also I had to port around remnants of an impromptu neighbourhood community-art project, which I think must have sagged in the brief thaw:

Another Green-Gymmer, on the way home from country walk, picked litter …

then “returned to the day’s main task of making breadsticks for an Italian themed Christmas party in the village”:

“A cool reception” from some other figures about this morning was another recurring theme:

“I’ve been chopping logs and making kindling for tonight’s fire,” reported one member.  A quintessentially countryside task in winter!  But as she said, “What a shame we aren’t on top of the hills in this glorious sunshine.”

As for me, after doing what all photographers do when the light promises well – get out there for the half hour before and after the sun crosses the horizon – I hurried back into the warmth.  Then drank coffee and edited all the wonderful copy being sent in by fellow Green-Gymmers as the morning progressed.

How to get to a place of bliss (legally and safely)

By ‘C’:

Access to places where the general public is not admitted, is one of the occasional treats of Green Gym.  Today we were in Paradise. 

Yes, really: Paradise Wood – the largest collection of timber trials in Britain.  All the extraordinary compartments we walked past to the one where we were to work, are scientific experiments in progress.  This one in particular, we thought, was quite magical in appearance:

Paradise Wood is so large, it would be quite easy to get lost among the trees.  That didn’t happen, but we did have two lost souls outside the gate.  They had arrived just that fraction too late at the RV point, and had been unable to attract the attention of the rest of us by calling out.  Eventually, they managed to make contact by that wonderful modern invention, the mobile phone; and ‘St Peter’ walked over with a key to admit them.

Meanwhile, the working party had been guided to the right ‘heaven’: a comparative study of companion trees for walnut.  The secondary planting here was hazel.  The ideas is that companion trees could supply shelter for the timber trees while they are small, encourage the timber trees to grow tall and straight, and discourage “epicormic growth”.  (That’s low, side branches – the point being that knots reduce the value of timber.)

Hazel itself is also a crop.  So we were detailed to progress the task of harvesting: coppicing and processing hazel rods. 

One team worked on processing what had been cut by a previous work-group.  Thin rods were cleaned up, and sent for binders (min. 8’), while sturdy rods were fashioned into stakes (6’):

In the course of this, we found once again that the billhook is a wonderfully versatile tool.  Also that a trestle can be improvised from almost anything – here the pile of stout logs for firewood:

There were almost no left-overs, for the remaining brash would be useful in due course.  The last action, by the final working-party in this compartment this season, will be to pile brash over the freshly coppiced stools.  The entire wood is secured all-round with deer- (and people-)proof fencing; but still the deer manage to get in, and relish nothing better than fresh shoots for breakfast.  The volunteers at the locked gate would not have had to have been kept waiting for the porter (“Oh dear!”) if they had been Bambi and the Great Prince.

Meanwhile, the second, larger party was engaged on cutting down more hazel.  This could, on occasion, be a two-person job, especially to extract some of the larger pieces:

The coppicing was a tad haphazard to begin with.  By tea-break, however, the usual Green-Gym desire for order had prevailed.  Cuttings were soon being sorted into piles of different materials:

There was even some preliminary processing taking place:

By session end, there was still plenty to do.  But there are plenty of other working-groups scheduled for this task.  Having left the site in a tidy, orderly state (and retrieved all the different tools: billhooks, bowsaws, pruning saws, and loppers) we could return to the world beyond the gate with a clear conscience.