Have we been here before?

Something needed to be done.  Overgrowing vegetation impinging on a public right of way, the odd bit of rotten, ivy-encrusted treelet entirely collapsed on to the track – and nobody quite sure whose responsibility this is.   

Enter Green Gym:

   

A couple of volunteers experienced that déjà vu feeling.  Was this a task we had undertaken before, many moons ago?  (Like a circle in a spiral, a wheel within a wheel?)  Answer was yes: today we were indeed on the job second time round.  

Almost within minutes you could see where places had already been given “a good seeing to” while workers were applying finishing touches:

Further down the track, heading towards the water meadows, the amount of encroachment was variable.  There were stretches where considerably more work was needed than in other places:

Where the scrub cover was lighter on one side than the other, we concentrated on the worst-affected side:

Below is not a red flag indicating an overhanging branch, just a suitable coat hanger whilst a nose was being blown:

Meanwhile, actually on the site (as opposed to just outside the boundary), a smaller team was repairing the steps – made by WGG, aeons ago – which lead down to the pond:

  

Digging out was to allow for insertion of a new recycled-plastic step board.  What is not obvious from the photograph is the mass of fairly large roots encountered.  An axe was called for, but none being available, a mattock was wielded to good effect instead.

Tidying up the steps on the other side provided infill material:

This is the result of the replacement step.  Odd angles, we are fairly sure, due to perspective of camera lens.  The lines looked straight to the naked eye.

Right the far side of the site, a fence rail was also refitted.  Can you tell which one?  

No, neither could we, when we looked back; but refitted it was!

Tea break was hosted in the middle of the site, making use of one of the benches as a serving counter.

For those who had been working in the gloom, siding up the overgrown pathway, it was a welcome opportunity to be out in the fresh air and daylight – albeit watery sunbeams.  Beneath the canopy of encroaching scrub, sunlight had been something one was only aware of at one remove.  Here, backlighting vegetation:

Over a cuppa there were exotica to observe:

Is that a koala up a tree in Oxfordshire?

– Well we've got camels, llamas & wallabies, and so on, so why not?

 

In the second half, forces were concentrated on track clearance, as the pond-step repair gang was transferred to the bridleway.  Still plenty to be done!

A lot of the cut material was stacked in the hedgerow to act as wildlife habitat:

Some of the brash just needed gentle persuasion back off the edge of the track:

We still ended up with a pile of cut material that we couldn’t persuade into the hedgerow:

Come session end there may have been plenty more yet to be done – by someone.  You could tell, however, which sections still need a bit more of a trim than others:

And here is the full story of life today in the Green-Gym universe

Even the ducks were enjoying the scene.  It was a beautiful day, sun on the river, what was not to like:

Humans, however, had no time to relax and merely enjoy the view.  The first task tackled was a familiar one: filling potholes in the slack road.  Two volunteers duly set to, finding a barrow, filling it, then filling a few holes, and dancing on them to pack the gravel down:

A second team – the experienced engineers – took on another task familiar from a different site: repairing the rotten base of a section of boardwalk.

Meanwhile, a larger group set to work on the ivy that was ever so slightly overwhelming the fence by the road:

Originally the request was to cut off the ivy along the top of the fence and just give the ivy growing outwards “a haircut trim.”  Site management was worried lest it be only the ivy which was holding up the fence.  As soon as the ivy was cut off the top, however, it peeled away from the fence; WGG destructive instincts kicked in; and most of the ivy ended up in a barrow, and from there to a pile for burning next time; and the fence is still standing strong & sturdy.

Yet another group was tasked with raking out where a willow tree had been removed previously, then bagging up the brash and dragging that too for burning at some point in the future: 

No bonfire today!  Overnight there had been a downpour as can be seen by the state of the road:

So our tea break did not have its usual glow to warm us:

After the break, another task was produced: moving piles of cut weeds, nettles and grass over to the reptile home.  (Not that we saw any of the resident reptiles.)

Towards session end, the ivy group was putting the finishing touches to the fence, and the two road menders were still working hard on the potholes.  We managed to finish on time, though.  Which was just as well really.  The Green Gym weather had behaved perfectly, as it should.  The day changed dramatically after we had arrived home: