Which way to go?

Two groups, two towns.  Because one town ain’t big enough?

Yes, this morning, for the first time in our history, Wallingford Green Gym ran two sessions simultaneously.  We’ve grown that big.  Or, more to the point, there was a limit on the amount of work needed at the site where we had first been scheduled to go; also a limit on the amount of space in which to work safely and happily.  So, rather last minute, it was arranged for: one group to keep our first commitment, at St Leonard’s churchyard in the town of Wallingford; and for another, larger contingent to work not in the next town, but in Ewelme village.

This naturally gave rise to all sorts of possibilities for Green-Gymmers to head quite the wrong way, emails sent not to arrive, &c.

Wallingford bridge, marked up for an event a few days ago

Some of us had visions of volunteers wandering about in a fog of confusion.  Not least because there is history of people trying to find St Leonard’s, fetching up at the wrong church, then wondering why there is nobody else about.  The building with the iconic spire in the background here is St Peter’s, which happens to lie on the same street:

Wallingford Bridge, early morning last Sunday

In fact we needn’t have worried.  [The future’s never ours to see, is it? – Ed.]  Today dawned bright and clear from the start, both literally and metaphorically.

That one is St Leonard’s – photograph taken first thing this morning from the opposite side of the River Thames

At Ewelme, most of the work was in Ewelme Brook: in most places, just ankle-deep in water.  (“If you’ve got wellies, all welly and good.”)  Our target, Great, aka ‘Hairy’, Willowherb:

Its flowers may be a pretty pink, but it crowds out species such as Ewelme’s iconic watercress.  It is called Great on account of its size, not because site managers think it is ecologically great.

Most of our number, then, set to pulling the plants by hand, to extract as much of the root system as possible.  This being hard work, and it being such a lovely day, inevitably it was not continuous labouring on the part of volunteers:

It was decided pretty quickly that more than one wheelbarrow would be needed for efficient moving of ex-willowherb to compost heap.  There were, after all, 14 of us plus site warden on location.  One Green-Gymmer was accordingly despatched to fetch another barrow from the centre. 

After they had been gone some time, a call arrived on the session leader’s mobile.  It was the volunteer asking if someone competent could be sent to help with the job?  The first person sent had been completely unable to fathom the business of padlocks and keycodes!

The advantage for the first volunteer having to wait was the unexpected bonus of having some time out in the most beautiful, peaceful location.  (Peaceful because all the other Green-Gymmers were far away, downstream.)  It was a joy just to stand and watch a young family:

Look out for the ducklings on the concrete bund in the video

The advantage of having finished up sending two bods to the centre, was that two wheelbarrows were brought back.  Both extra barrows ended up being used in the stream.

Wheelbarrowing vegetation to the compost heap was obviously a job for a stevedore working on dry land.  Other shore jobs were:

Compost-heap management

Relocating tadpoles from a pond which is rapidly drying up

For many Green-Gymmers, working in Ewelme Stream on a warm sunny day brings back fond memories of childhood summers spent splashing about and having fun in the water.  Tadpoling takes this to another level!  It is a pastime one absolutely associates with being about age 6.

At tea-break, the urge could no longer be resisted, for session leader at Ewelme to telephone oppo at St Leonard’s and ask if they needed reinforcements.  Much of the conversation which followed, seemed to be on the subject of supplies of cake. 

Eventually the question was asked:

Ewelme to St Leonard’s: How many of you are there?

St L: Six.

Ewelme: Six Green-Gymmers?

St L: No, I’m counting legs.

Those three pairs of legs (and arms) must have worked hard, because apparently that group – with assistance from other people, who live near the churchyard – filled six builders’ bags with the surplus vegetation they cut.  The idea is that a generous portion of the churchyard is set aside as nature area, but there is a limit to how much luxuriant nature is welcome on site:

Here too it was warm work:

Which group had the better morning?  I would not like to hazard a guess!

The birds are awake

It seemed almost a shame to disturb the tranquillity of the scene by the stream on this beautiful morning:

Certainly the duck, which appeared to be asleep – except for promptly getting up and moving away every time the photographer attempted to approach for a closer shot – was of the opinion that another party of humans arriving to do volunteer work on site was really rather tiresome.

The work, however, was much needed.  For just at the moment these are watercress beds with rather a shortage of watercress, and an excess of other plant species:

In places, the weeds made for some pretty patterns:

At other spots, the duckweed was so thick, it made the watercourse look like solid ground – more of a green river than a self-respecting Chilterns chalkstream:

Some barrows were already loaded with weeds and silt removed from the stream, courtesy of yesterday’s work-party.

The rest of the spoil extracted from the brook by the group preceding us was resting – and drying out – on the concrete bund.  It was now ready for us to cart away, one barrow-load at a time.

“Why are we always clearing up after other people?”

It was a long way to the compost heap.  You can just make out the tiny figure of a Green-Gymmer in the distance on the first of these photographs.  We were grateful that the weather was pleasantly sunny, but not as hot as it had been for our predecessors yesterday.

Even as the pickings from yesterday were being barrowed away, other volunteers were hard at work generating more material to be carted away this afternoon.  Some were weeding by hand/fork, others raking out unwanted vegetation:

Meanwhile, down at the other end of the site – downstream – engineering works were in progress:

Two sets of work, in fact.  One consisted of ‘just’ moving things around on site.  This was more than “an engineering tidy”, though.  For one thing, the items concerned were rocks – heavy rocks; and the barrow had a flat tyre.

Some of the cargo, to be transported

from here …

to there (where if they are piled up by other hands to dam the stream, they will not be obstructing the way for fish)

This was not the first time we had relocated items from that particular stretch of the stream, which is clearly popular with small persons.  Last time we did a similar job, it was to extract old tyres, and re-form them into a planter.  It was good to see our handiwork in use on site:

The resident robin also checked out whether this development had turned up anything of use for him:

And the other engineering works – well those had something to do with repairing a weir, including making a through-route for fish.  For those not immediately involved (that was most of us), it was all very mysterious.

And there were an awful lot of us on site today.  For we were joined by two teams of people (young, fit, hard-working!) on one of their out-of-office days. 

The mid-morning break was a time to socialise and, of course, to take on board refreshments.  A most impressive range of eats and drinks (thank you, EA and Watercress Beds Visitor Centre bods!)

“I don’t know when I last ate an ice-lolly” one of our own volunteers cheerfully observed.

Because we were based right beside the site visitor centre, rather than being out in the wilds as were last week, there was also an opportunity to put a fresh edge on some of the tools:

For the second half of the morning, there was for some of us a chance to swap jobs.  While work to make watercress-beds less of a haven for weeds and more of a reserve for actual watercress continued, another party carried some more tools downstream.  The immediate task was to remove mud – a copious quantity of sloppy, black mud (but far from the worst we have ever encountered) – from the area where the weir was to be restored.

Looking over to the right from the pathway, it really did look as if an Arcturan mega-cow had had an unfortunate accident.  [There’s a bathroom on the right? – Ed.]  And yes, the only way to get the gloop out, and high up on to the bank, was to scoop it up in buckets:

We Green-Gymmers did our bit, but for completion of the tasks, it was over to our visitors.  For they were staying for the whole working day, while we dispersed as usual at 1 o’clock.