Normal service is resumed

The morning after last week’s aborted Green Gym, the sun was out again – revealing plenty more evidence of the destructive power of a spring gale:

After that, March winds continued to march across the landscape for much of the rest of the week – sunny spells alternating with heavy rain.  Volunteers ‘survived’ ;) the enforced day off last week.  God only knows where we’d be without Green Gym?  Maybe not: one Green-Gymmer reported “having a lazy morning: drinking coffee, and eating very slowly cooked sausages while reading the paper!” [The newspaper, not pulp fiction.  And was that sausages being eaten very slowly, or sausages which had been slow-cooked?  Or both? – Ed.]

Today, the wind had calmed down.  First thing, down in the Thames Valley, the weather may have been a little drab – like the colouring of the chiffchaff whose arrival heralds the new season – but it felt almost like a spring day:

Several hundred feet higher up, on the Chilterns scarp, the season was less advanced.  By now, however, there could be no doubt, it was really rather a lovely morning to be out in the South-Oxfordshire countryside:

Our mission: to give chalk-grassland a haircut.  So a normal day at the Natural England reserve, as scrub management is the one task that is never completed.  As soon as one area is cleared, there are numerous others that nature has taken back. 

Unlike many of our sessions there, we had to carry our tools only a short distance from car park to work area: there was not the usual steep slope to negotiate before we could even start work.  The woods at the edge of the field had a ‘Hänsel and Gretel’ feel to them:

That splendid new hat set the scene:

A quick sort of the tools …

and we were off.  The ‘scrub’ was mainly low-level and small in diameter.  Today’s work-out was mostly a matter of bending down with shears – or loppers, or secateurs – to remove encroaching, smothering brambles:

Most of us found that this was not an exercise which could be done continuously.  Too demanding on the back!  So there was time too to stop and admire the view from on top of the Chilterns when the weather shifted to sunlight over the land below:

“You also get good views of weather fronts coming in,” commented the site warden.  Many is the time in the past when we have so managed to arrange things at Green Gym that we are in our cars ready to leave when the first of a band of rain arrives.

Some of us wondered if there might not be enough wind this morning for a fire to be lit, to dispose of the arisings.  Despite initial scepticism (“It’ll all be too damp, with all the rain we’ve had recently”) a bonfire was attempted …

successfully:

Plus, our fire marshal gave some fire-lighting training to his new deputy.

The soundscape this morning was also interesting.  A chiffchaff, with the distinctive song after which it is named, gave assurance that even here it is indeed getting on for the end of winter.  (Apparently at this reserve the first chiffchaff of the year was heard a couple of weeks ago.)  The snip-snip-snip of a body of volunteers working with shears prompted the session leader to remark that “It feels like the hairdresser’s here!”  And, with all the green stuff being loaded on to it, the bonfire crackled merrily:

Green-Gym chatter ranged from details of the assault on Pegasus Bridge (OP Deadstick, 6 June 1944) to the virtues of St Joseph, whose feast-day is today (a break from the Lent fast: perfect excuse for all volunteers to tuck into cake at tea-break).  Obviously Joseph is patron saint of carpenters and labourers generally, which would certainly include Green-Gymmers.  But do you know which countries he is patron of?  This was looked up via a smart-phone during tea-break.  Answer below.

In the second half, work was more of the same.  That progress was being made was clear to be seen.  It also revealed to advantage the line of fencing, which we had put in on a previous occasion:

Before

After

That there was no end in sight to bramble-clearance, however, caused even Green-Gym spirits to droop a little.  Perhaps we should have offered a prayer to St Joseph?  As it was, another outbreak of sunshine prompted calls to “get the deckchairs out” ;)

Near the gateway there was a slight change of emphasis in the work when the site-warden observed that the sheep’s water trough was a little difficult for the animals to reach:

That was soon sorted:

Work had to come to a final stop when it was time to carry the last loads to the flames, and let the fire die down.  Here, some members admiring their handiwork:

At the very end, it was just like the old days at Green Gym: the weather held while we were out in it; spots of rain on windscreens as we set off home.

Answer to the saint-teaser:

Statue in chapel of Burnham Abbey

Joseph, aka Yosef benYa‘akov, husband of Miryam, from whom was born the Yeshua that was called the Messiah (Matthew’s Gospel 1:16), is patron saint of: Canada, Mexico, China, Korea, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Peru, and Vietnam.  San Jose – the Spanish form of his name – is said to be the most common place-name in the world.   

His great virtue?  “He doesn’t try to be centre stage but he is a great enabler of others.”