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:

Much grass!

By one of the session volunteers:

Mowbray Fields is a favourite site for some of the tasks there, but not necessarily for today’s job.  We had wondered how many of us there would be today. 

Raking cut grass is not the most popular task.  [Especially not at that particular site – Ed.]  In the event, however, it was a good turnout, and a session which many of us enjoyed much more than we expected. 

To keep the neighbours happy, we were able to park our cars on the site rather than by the side of the congested approach-road.

There was a lot of meadow-cut to be gathered, as the grass on the wild flower meadow had grown prolifically this year. 

Yesterday, the site warden had managed to cut about 80% of the area, before the machine broke down!  Today, site warden was at the wheel of the ever-dependable landie – at the start of the session, manoeuvring the trailer to alongside where the workers would be, for ease of loading:

The Green-Gymmers were, of course, equipped with the traditional tools for this purpose:

 

The task didn’t seem so great at first.

As the raking got under way, however, the rolls of grass got bigger and heavier.  Not that this seemed to dampen Green-Gymmers’ spirits:

Some volunteers developed a positively balletic technique:

As the rakers rolled it up, the pitchforkers took each consignment, and loaded it on to the trailer:

From time to time, the trailer was driven down to the bottom of the site to be offloaded beside the compost heap, then stacked on to the heap – more manual labour required.

As the session progressed, there was discussion about using sheep to keep the grass under control as the royal parks are doing. 

Some of the local wildlife was not pleased at our disrupting their territory, and escaped as soon as possible.

Our agile warden rescued another, and – pausing only for a quick photoshoot - took it to a place of safety.

By the end of the session three trailer-loads had been gathered, transported, offloaded, and stacked.  That amounted to about two-thirds of what had been cut,
so most of the meadow had been cleared:

It had been good and satisfying exercise for us, and the weather warm, but not sunny – just right.  For that we were very thankful.  Unfortunately we didn’t manage to find the lost bolt from the machine.