We were only playing (leapfrog)

By the Session Leader:

“You always bring good weather!” exclaimed our host this morning.

Indeed we had.  Meteorological conditions had made good on the promise of the evening before:

The northerly wind, which made for a crystal clear sky at dawn, had dropped – leaving just warm sunshine to surprise and delight.

A lovely day then to walk along a leafy path between South-Oxfordshire village and a field now settled down to its winter rest:

Anyone taking that route first thing this morning, however, will have noticed something slightly odd.  Rings.  Lots of rings.  All made from tiger tape, and draped around selected trees.  Here are just a few:

The tape was not, of course, decorative.  It marked where we were going to work.  For our task this morning was to free trees enveloped in ivy.  Great joy for those volunteers who take a fierce pleasure in removing ivy.  Disappointment for those who had to be told ;) that they were not to cut down the trees, just the ivy.  [Ain’t no pleasing some people – Ed.]

Volunteers set to with a variety of tools, including a small pickaxe for prizing ivy away from bole of tree:

Many a tree was rapidly freed from its ivy bondage.  (“It’s looking much happier already.”)  Here the job is almost done:

Before

Very nearly there

Just a bit of clearing up after ourselves and other path-users, and team-members could move on to the next ring-marked tree, some of them singing out loud, “They were only playing leap-frog.”

After

It was, I think, the warmth of the sun which prompted some Green-Gymmers’ thoughts to turn early to tea-break.  Naturally, having convened for 10 am, delights of tea, coffee, and cake have to be deferred until a respectable time after 11 am.  [Fun fact: it was Denis Norden of blessed memory who gave the ‘real’ ;) explanation of the dictum ‘Cogito, ergo sum’.  It was hastily scribbled by a friend on a napkin to warn him not to pinch nibbles from the pièce de résistance ahead of time at an all-night party.  What René Descartes published to the world as ‘I think therefore I am’ was a misreading.  The note actually read: ‘I think they’re for 1 am’. – Ed.]

Had it been particularly hard work in the first half of the session?  Well, one volunteer was keen that we should all know he was not metaphorically sitting down on the job:

“This is fine work I am doing here.  By ‘fine’ I mean delicate.”

At half-time it had looked like we were on course to finish the task with time left over to take on a supplementary job.  The odd blooper, however, put paid to that.  No, it was not that any Green-Gymmer was playing a prank, or felling a tree by mistake: it was just that we did come across some trees which had already succumbed to being smothered by ivy.  Such dead trees had to be taken down before they fell down.

So towards the end of the morning it was just a case of Session Leader scooting along the path to collect up stray tools, plus the empty cans, bottles, and tobacco pouches left by other members of the Great British Public.  (What is it with Dorchester out-of-doors drinkers and Stella Artois?) 

We do like to do our keep tidy bit: that’s one fine collection about to go in the bin

Fruits of Autumn

Photoreportage compiled from action-shots taken by the Session Leader:

There is no doubting the colours of autumn now, despite a rearguard action from the summer sun yesterday afternoon:

Evening before Green Gym: gentler clime, and gentler surroundings

That brave solar show took late-afternoon temperatures up to a balmy [or barmy? – Ed.] 24 C.  This morning dawned mild enough, but decidedly grey, with a fine spray of rain on a brisk wind.  Fortunately, it brightened up considerably once it had realised that today was a Green-Gym day.

This was what we were aiming for today, on the slopes of the Chilterns:

A wilder landscape, but even so: scrub kept in its place; and nice clean lines for pathways and fence-lines

To get to that desired point required a considerable of input of Green-Gym power, using all means at volunteers’ disposal:

Autumn fruits were all around.  Down in the Thames valley, blackberries (most of them anyway) are done for this year.  Here, at a slightly higher altitude, and in a much more exposed location at the top of the Chilterns scarp, blackberries &c are still going:

Not that fruits fresh-picked from the forest were on the menu at tea-break:

"Strawberries because summer is fast disappearing, and mince pies because Christmas is round the corner" - from the birthday boy, because that was what he always did in the office (many happy returns!)

As always, by session end you could see where Green-Gymmers had been at work:

At the start of play

At close of play

Before

Just finishing off

Landscape awaiting attention

Proud workers