By ‘C’ and the Session Leader:
Only the third warmest and driest summer for
a century it may be in England, but perhaps it is precisely because it is the
hottest since 1976 that there are retailers who would have us thinking about
Christmas.
Do you feel cooler if you contemplate
this?
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| First sign of (commercial) Xmas 2018, spotted in Wallingford Oxon, 12 July |
The range of tasks on offer today may have
had a certain Santa-Claus largesse feel about it: moving compost heap from yard to woodland-area, where it can be a
reptile habitat; stripping paint off a garden bench ready
for oiling; clearing reeds overgrowing boardwalk; sweeping leaves and brushing
cobwebs off landing stage; removing nettles; sweeping and tidying slipway; clearing
floating-weed from pond, and topping up the water level; and fixing new hook on
Reserve gate. There was,
however, no winter-related reason for this sudden abundance: it was just that there
were large numbers of volunteers today; and tomorrow is the day of the ‘Goring
Gap in Bloom’ inspection!
The most noticeable
thing on arrival was that a great many more notice-boards had been put up at
the site since we were last there. Very
smart they look too:
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| Approach from South Stoke (beside Ridgeway footpath) |
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| Approach from Goring |
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| Directions for those with wheels - note the flourishing hedge on the left, planted and cared for at intervals by us |
The big task was
to move the compost heap.
We always hope
that Green-Gym teams will execute their tasks as beautifully as a Perisic or Mbappé and team-mates, rather than those whose
job it was to prepare some of the ceremonial the day before in a city
where minds were perhaps already focussed on toasting Les Bleus? And we are always keen to complete a job.
Not everything,
however, goes entirely to plan, not even at Green Gym. The
session leader himself was spotted confidently setting off with a barrowload of
compost from the yard area …
only to have to stop,
moments later, to ask the way:
The task looked
easy enough. For the most part it was, once
we had all got ourselves orientated, and acquired shovels to use alongside
pitchforks. The only difficulty was that
there was much more to move than first appeared. One volunteer was convinced that this compost
heap had Tardis-like properties. The
team (by now with several substitutions) was still going strong on this at the
end of the session – and no, this is not a posed photo:
Elsewhere, one set
of tools not usually used at Green Gym had been set out, more in hope than in
expectation that there would be a rush of volunteers to use them:
Indeed there was
no great rush of Green-Gymmers to start sanding and oiling benches, but those
who did go for it, did so with gusto. By
session end, not only had the first bench been stripped of its old paint, but
it and another one had been oiled as well:
Meanwhile, one
volunteer had got stuck into wielding a broom on the landing stage. Leaf-sweeping, easy. Cobweb removal required some patience and
persistence – would not have been a job for an arachnophobe!
Other volunteers
turned their hand to dealing with nettles which had grown far too big for their
boots:
Most volunteers,
however, disappeared to ‘side up’ the pathways on site, including the
boardwalk:
They ‘disappeared’
in the sense that the foliage often made it hard to see even the next person
working alongside, also in the sense that the session leader spent some considerable
time looking for them, to no avail:
It turned out that
while he was off searching for them, they had already returned to base for half-time!
As ever, there was
some improvisation of coffee-tables – as well as a chance to remove excess
layers on a warm day:
And as often,
there was some special delicacies to sample.
This time, maple creme cookies (biscuits à la crème d’érable):
For today we had
visitors from Canada. They are ‘regulars’, as they have been coming, at intervals of 18 months - 2 years, all the way
across the Atlantic to do Green Gym ;) since the days when
one of the family was earning one of these for time spent doing conservation
work:
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| Scout badges |
In the second half, Team Canada made short
work of leaf-litter on the slipway, with some slick passing between players:
The simplest job of all, it turned out, had already
been done: to put a new hook on a Reserve gate. So as volunteers became free from their
other tasks, they attended to the tasks which felt never-ending: compost-heap
removal; and nettle-pulling. The compost
heap would have needed another hour’s working on it; fortunately, the judges
are not expected until tomorrow afternoon.
As for nettle-pulling, well that really is a never-ending job at that
site, but you could see that progress was being made:
Oh, and there was one job still waiting to be
done:
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| A pond which could use a top-up |
All the same, we think/hope the squad did a
good job (on a fait du
bon boulot). By session-end our minds were certainly turning to other matters.
For our day also featured feasting and
festive quiz. That is because today was
our AGM. And Wallingford Green-Gym AGMs
are done in style, ie informally, over lunch at a nearby hostelry:
Each year we try to present the information
about the previous year in a different format.
This time, it was incorporated into a quiz which had a numerical
theme. Which proved absorbing, but very
hard. Well done to our winners! who included one of our Canadian colleagues. [Je
pense que cela mérite des félicitations. – Ed.]
Until next time – à la prochaine!
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