What joy!

Three for the price of one this week.  We promised you a bumper edition of the blog, and here it is: two Green-Gym session write-ups + answers to the 2018 WGG Xmas quiz.

On a work-first principle, before the fun, let’s start with the Green Gym action.  A bright blue sky last week (19 Feb), but a keen breeze across the escarpment.  A particularly steep incline was where 13 volunteers gathered to remove removing invasive hawthorn, blackthorn, and brambles:

A fire was attempted …

but the brash proved to be too green.  Sometimes there really is smoke without a fire worth speaking of.

So stacks were left to dry in the wind, to be burned another day:

That was last Tuesday.  This week, the schools are back, so even more volunteers for Green Gym turned out for a session at the other end of the habitat spectrum in our area: down in the valley floor – so far down as to be literally where the wetted perimeter of the Thames ought to be.

The river does not run quite to the line that it naturally would, because human-led activity has led to erosion.  Our task was to help put that right.

So: “more green engineering”.  Another layer of willow bundles was laid into the two riparian areas which we have been building up over the years.  As water levels rise and fall, the bundles trap silt.  That collected silt – over time – stabilises the river bank.

Again it was the most beautiful day: unbroken sunshine, and this time the lightest of warm southerlies.  You might almost have supposed it was summer, unless you brought to mind what the place looks like in high season – and recall that at dawn this morning there was ice about!

Upper meadow, Crowmarsh last August

This morning at first light

High summer ...

tourist season

In February, when there are fewer visitors

Our work area today as it looked in the summer

Today, before the arrival of Green Gym

Around dawn, the scene was by no means silent.  The soundscape consisted mostly of birdsong, distant motorised traffic, the rattle of oars in rowlocks, and some competitive wood-pecking:

By 10 o’clock, as Green-Gymmers gathered, the woodpeckers were getting on with the rest of their day.  Likewise the early-morning rowers.  So the scene was set for us.  Enter landie with trailerful of cut willow.

It seemed a quite daunting amount of material to process:

Did all the brash fall out, once we had removed the sides of the trailer?  No!  It all had to be taken out by hand, with the occasional pause for brow-mopping:

Once unloaded, the sticks all had to picked up again and sorted into bundles, which had to be secured with twine, then carried over to what was rapidly named ‘the playpen’.  The ‘string lady’ (aka Session Leader) was kept busy maintaining the supply line for the bundle factory.

That’s one of the wonderful things about Green Gym.  As the ‘string lady’ – presumably with her session-leader hat on – said:

What I love about Green Gym is how the mornings settle into a pattern.  They start with a vague “ermm”, and one or two people making the first move, while the others watch tentatively, trying to work out what best to do.  

Then after 10 minutes, I turn round and everyone is spread out across the meadow, some unloading the trailer, some dragging out and sorting willow into piles, some tying bundles, while others are in the fenced-off area, assessing the holes and receiving the bundles (fuzzy-end first – mostly).  What team work!   A joy to behold.  Thank you, gang.

Note first T-shirt of the year for Green-Gym workforce.  After the break, the woolly hat came off as well

Inside the playpen, there was a preliminary job: routine maintenance on the wooden bollards which secure the adjacent public footpath, where it crosses a small bridge.  (“What do we do when those posts rot, as they must do eventually?” – “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it!”)

The bundle-laying team could then take delivery of the willow-packages.  This process too rapidly generated a unique vocabulary – “Whispy or woody?” – as volunteers communicated to each other the need for particular deliveries to be made pointy- or woody-end first:

By tea break, the trailer was empty and provided a most spacious dining table/bench, with some very gooey chocolate cake and much more.  

It was so warm and sunny that it was hard to get back to work.  We did though.  Get back to work, that is. 

As the level of laid willow rose inside the enclosure, stakes were hammered in at a diagonal to secure the bundles in place.  To our surprise, we did manage to process the entire trailer-load of materials.  (Amazing how much you can get done when you have many pairs of willing hands available!)  Inevitably, as the session wound down, there were rather more ‘watchers’ outside than people working inside the pen:

“It looks like the Kon-Tiki.  Cut it loose, and let it float down to the Thames Estuary, from there to the Atlantic – and round Cape Horn?”

On dry land, and in sober real-life, the final job for us was the re-assembling of the trailer:

And now, the moment some people have been waiting for!  The questions were emailed to Green-Gymmers for Christmas, and published on the blog last week.  Here now, for all to see: solutions to the WGG Around the World Quiz.

A) Complete the quotation

1) “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (Shakespeare – Hamlet I iv)

2) the glory that was Greece (Edgar Allen Poe – ‘To Helen’)

3) “I’m Charley’s aunt, from Brasil, where the nuts come from” (Brandon Thomas – Charley’s Aunt)

4) “You’re a very small bear,” said Mrs Brown, “where are you from?”  “Darkest Peru,” said the bear: “I’m not really supposed to be here at all.  I’m a stowaway.  I came all the way in a lifeboat, and I ate marmalade.  Bears like marmalade.”  (Michael Bond – A Bear Called Paddington)

5) In today’s modern Galaxy there is, of course, very little still held to be unspeak­able ... But though even words like ‘juju-flop’, ‘swut’, and ‘turlingdrome’ are now perfectly acceptable in common usage, there is one word that is still beyond the pale.  The concept it embodies is so revolting that the publication or broadcast of the word is utterly forbidden in all parts of the galaxy except one – where they don’t know what it means.  That word is ‘Belgium’  (Douglas Adams – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)

B) Match country to product/species

6) Canada Goose

7) India Rubber

8) Japan Black

9) Lebanon Cedar

10) Morocco Leather

11) Norway Pine

12) Panama Hat

13) Singapore Sling

C) Books with countries in the title

14) A Passage to India – E M Forster

15) The Passage to India – Allan Mallinson

16) Hornblower and the West Indies – C S Forester

17) The Kappillan of Malta – Nicholas Monsarrat

18) Reginald in Russia – Saki  

19) England, my England – D H Lawrence

20) Fair Stood the Wind for France – H E Bates

D) Films with bizarre titles when released in other countries

21) ‘Interplanetary Unusual Attacking Team’ (Taiwan) = Guardians of the Galaxy

22) ‘Mr. Cat Scat’ (Hong Kong) = As Good as It Gets

23) ‘Love in the Skies’ (Israel) = Top Gun

24) ‘Vaseline’ (Argentina) = Grease

E) Songs with countries in the title

25) ‘Back in the USSR’ – The Beatles

26) ‘Born in the USA’ – Bruce Springsteen

27) ‘Flower Of Scotland’ – The Corries

28) ‘Panama’ – Van Halen

29) ‘Paraguay’ – Iggy Pop

30) ‘Finland’ – Monty Python

F) Places in England with names which include foreign countries

31) Great Holland (Essex)

32) New Holland (Lincs.)

33) New Zealand (Bucks.)

34) Denmark Hill (London railway station)

35) Egypt (Bucks.)

36) Little Switzerland (North Devon)

G) Visual Images

37) USA: New Amsterdam, Manhattan, New York

38) Not Greek Islands, but UK – SCOTLAND (Alba): Fionnphort (which in Gaelic means ‘Whitehaven’), The Ross of Mull (An Ros Mhuileach), Isle Of Mull (Muile)

39) FRANCE: Pont d’Iéna viewed from Tour Eiffel, Isle de France, Paris

40) UK – ENGLAND: Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester

H) ‘H’ for Half way!  Time to relax, with some jokes

41) What is the fastest country in the world?  Russia!

42) What is the coldest (and the hottest) country?  Chile!

43) What is in the middle of India?  The letter ‘D’!

44) What country does a pirate love to sail his ship to?  AARRRGHentina!

45) If a plane crashed on the border of Canada and the USA, where would they bury the survivors?  They wouldn’t!  (The survivors are the people who lived.)

I) Fencing

46) AWAY – SWAY – SWAT – SEAT – BEAT – BOAT – BOLT – BOLE – HOLE – HOME

J) Country surnames

47) Anatole France, nom de plume of François-Anatole Thibault

48) Composer, John Ireland

49) Middle-distance runner, Rob Denmark

50) Megadeath guitarist, Chris Poland

51) Spanish performer, Conchita Montenegro

52) Tibet, pseudonym of Gilbert Gascard

53) QB, Malik Zaire

K) Albums

54) Selling England by the Pound – Genesis

55) Back in the USA – MC5

56) Sketches of Spain – Miles Davis

57) Rocket to Russia – Ramones

L) Anagrams

58) a bison – Bosnia                                       

59) earn giant – Argentina                                          

60) estimator – East Timor                                                          

61) grey man – Germany                                             

62) moon race – Cameroon                                        

63) opera sign – Singapore                                                         

64) road cue – Ecuador                 

65) shed lantern – Netherlands                

M) Movies with the name of a country in the title

66) From Russia with Love (1963)

67) The Boys from Brazil (1978)

68) The China Syndrome (1979)

69) Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

70) Madagascar (2005)

N) for ‘New’ Territories

71) New Ireland – PNG

72) New Caledonia – France

73) New Brunswick – Canada

74) New Mexico – USA

75) New Georgia – Solomon Islands

O) Oh my, we’re almost there!  Some trad knock-knock jokes

76)          Knock, knock!  Who's there?
                Jamaica  Jamaica who?

                Jamaica ’er do that, or did she decide for ’erself?

77)         Knock, knock!  Who's there?
                Francis  Francis who?
                France is the country at the other end of the Channel Tunnel

78)         Knock, knock!  Who's there?
                Canada  Canada who?
                Can Ada come out and play?

79)         Knock, knock!  Who's there?
                Kenya  Kenya who?
                Kenya think of anything that’s more fun than the WGG Xmas quiz?

80)         Knock, knock!  Who's there?
                Oman  Oman who?

                Oh man, these jokes are bad!  
                (and Green-Gym quizzes are hard?)