One long morning (but fun)!

By ‘C’:

                                  

It was the return of several ‘old favourites’ by way of tasks today, and the longest over-run of a session that we have had for a long while.

That it was nearly 2 o’clock before the site was in a state where we could leave for another work-party to continue, could not be helped.  For the main task was boardwalk-repair.

 

Once you’ve ripped up a footpath used by the public, well you really can’t go home until it is restored to a usable condition.  – Can’t all go home, that is: it was, of course, perfectly in order for individual volunteers to leave at the usual time (or earlier) to be able to get on with the rest of their day.  It only needed a core group to stay on to get the job done.

On arrival, it was not difficult to see where boardwalk repair was most certainly needed.  What photographs cannot convey is the ‘bouncy’ feel of timbers beneath one’s feet.  That the boardwalk was not meant to be that springy, one could tell from the places where holding repairs had been effected.

Demolishing the moribund section of boardwalk was the easy bit.  It did look fun – at least from the perspective of one deployed as ‘mule’ to transport old timber out, and bring new materials in. 

The ‘jammy bar’ (not something we use very often) is a nifty bit of kit: a cross between a short crowbar and the claw end of a hammer – lighter than a crowbar, but strong enough not to bend even when put to much heavier use than merely extracting old nails.  Our Tools Officer says that jammy bars come in several different lengths – he has a short one, about 8 inches – and they are “often called a pry bar and very popular with burglars!” 

Removed timbers were to be sorted into “good” (re-usable) and “rotten”.  This was not always an easy call to make.  In some cases, however, there could be no reasonable doubt:

Meanwhile, the other honest workers had other tasks to keep us out of mischief.  There were perhaps not quite so many of us as usual, though it was good to welcome one volunteer back to ‘active duty’ as it were.  Naturally, our absent colleagues have not just disappeared: it is that time of year when many have other calls on their time, and we look forward to seeing them again in September.

For a start, the brook needed a little TLC.  Litter and overgrowing vegetation do not add to the charm of what is still a Chilterns chalk-stream, even if, by the time it has got to here, it is very near its destination, to merge into the big river (the Thames).

Stream before …

Minutes later ...

you can already see where Green-Gymmers have been

The other job before tea-break was removing Himalayan Balsam.  The plants were pulled out whole, and then the heads removed and deposited into a bag for separate disposal:

This was a job we had done at other locations – and indeed, many years before, at this site, at a different spot.  So one of our volunteers was only joking when he brightly answered the site-warden’s question about whether we knew which plants we were removing:

Anything that’s pink?

– Nooo!  Or you’ll be stripping half the nature reserve …

It fell to one of the erstwhile mules to walk the short length of the site, upstream, to check whether ‘HB’ had made any kind of incursion elsewhere, especially in the place from which we had successfully first eradicated it.  One sprig was taken along for identification purposes, to be sure that all the other pink-flowering plants being spared were indeed not invasive HB:

Himalayan Balsam (Impatiens glandulifera)

Thankfully, we can report that the rest of the site is HB-free.  Which is proof positive that HB-pulling can work.

Besides a variety of tasks to keep us occupied, there were also many exotic-looking plants to add interest to the morning.  Everything at this place seems to be on a grand scale!

Tea-break took us into another habitat zone, a wildflower meadow.  This had its own abundance of marvels, including another glove-plant:

There was also today’s ‘find’ to look at.  This was recovered from the stream:

“Some of us are hooked on these things”

Apparently the fact that this item is forged, rather than cast, means it is stronger.  Anyway, it was duly pocketed by a volunteer who could make use of it, once the old wire had been cut away.

After our fortifying coffee & cake, this was where some of us were despatched to:

Not a pond, as you might think from the view in that direction, but what is meant to be a ditch, as you can see from this second shot, looking back to where the Green-Gymmer had already been:

There was enough mud, of Third Battle of Ypres Day 1 consistency, to make this location feel like a shallow trench.  Progress was best made by placing the feet as far towards the edge as possible, and leaning on the side of the makeshift walkway to take as much of the weight off as possible.  But Green-Gymmers were still smiling:

Meanwhile, the boardwalk-repair job had entered the construction phase.  For reasons not entirely clear to me, this included some excavation beneath the level of the frame:

Progress was slow, but steady.  There really are, after all, no shortcuts to success.  And as one of the workers explained, they were not making it up as they went along: “It’s called improvising.”

At last, the session leader could take his ‘after’ photographs, and the remainder of the team could disperse: