Gale, fresh or strong?

Confronted with a weather forecast predicting any sort of a gale, the first instinct of a true-born Green-Gymmer is to shrug off the warning: “What’s a bit of breeze?”

Earlier reports had suggested we would get the benefit of a window of good weather, as the remnants of Hurricane Gonzalo made landfall on Britain.  As the event drew closer, the forecasters seemed more certain about the timetable: sunshine Tuesday morning, but windspeeds peaking too.

What the experts were not sure of was just how strong those winds were going to be.  The Chief Forecaster’s Assessment (issued by the Met Office 1626 on Mon 20 Oct 2014) was undeniably true, but not awfully helpful for anyone planning a work session in the great outdoors:

“some damage to trees is possible, given that many are still in full leaf.” 

Anything is ‘possible’.  What a planner would like to know is, how probable it is!

It is, after all, not that long ago that in unusually warm sunshine for the season I found a day-flying moth most improbably basking on my front door.

At least I think it was a day-flying moth.  If I have correctly identified it as a Small White Wave (Asthena albulata: small wingspan, < 2 cm), it was outside its normal habitat.  For it normally lives in broad-leaved woodland rather than a housing estate.  Perhaps it only comes and poses on my door when it spots the opportunity to be well camouflaged in between visits from the window cleaners.

In defence of forecasters: it has subsequently been pointed out to me, by someone who’d know, that ‘possible’ has two different meanings:

1. probability greater than zero    
2. probability something like a quarter

Meaning #2 is what you get when a forecaster presents results in words rather than numbers.  Furthermore – scientist observes – “very small scale weather forecasting is extremely difficult unless you put in tremendous resources, which you can do if it is a very important spot such as an airport.  I am not sure your Green Gym location would count for that”! 

As it happens, we are near a spot to which more weather-forecasting resources are allocated (RAF Benson), but can only access their information in the same Janet-and-John format as any other members of the public.  With the geography here, an accurate forecast for the air-station can be U/S for a location only a couple of miles away.

To return to the tale of today’s non-Green Gym:

Cue translate mph into knots, and look up Beaufort Scale.  Target fell neatly between Force 8 (which wouldn’t put off our volunteers) and Force 9 (which would, or at least should, especially when we’re scheduled to be working under trees):

8: Fresh Gale 

Moderately high waves, of greater length.  Edges of waves begin to break into spindrift; foam is blown in well marked streaks along the direction of the wind.  Considerable airborne spray.

Some twigs broken from trees.  Cars veer on road.  Progress on foot is seriously impeded.

9: Strong gale

High waves whose crests sometimes roll over.  Dense foam is blown along wind direction.  Large amounts of airborne spray may begin to reduce visibility.

Some branches break off trees, and some small trees blow over. 
Construction/temporary signs and barricades blow over.

No mention in the Beaufort Scale of wheelie bins overturning!

Add the observation from someone who would know, that there are lime trees at the site which have a track record of shedding large limbs, and alas, as ‘C’ – and the one who sat through 6 hours of TCV risk-assessment training – it fell to me to make the unpopular call and say, “No, we can’t do it: if we know there are trees which are liable to drop big branches, and if we know that the first high winds of this autumn are forecast to peak during the session, it would be irresponsible of us to proceed.” 

Which may have been right, but was terribly boring.

A long walk to Dorset

Nature was looking a bit bedraggled:

And the rain was drizzling down.  Which was unfortunate because this was not an autumn afternoon, it was Tuesday morning; and, as is well known, it is not supposed to rain on a Tuesday morning.  Nevertheless, sufficient numbers of Green-Gymmers to make up a football-team turned out for an Autumn-Tidy-with-Attitude. 

Offered a range of tasks, nearly all the volunteers took a fancy to what seemed an enormous job, demolishing a bramble bush so large I had to use the widest angle possible on my little camera to take in a line of workers:

Perhaps folks all opted for this task because to get there we had already walked most of the length of the site.  Hence one volunteer remarking, “It’s a long walk to Dorset” – adding that he couldn’t remember which comedian’s catch-phrase that had been.  (Answer is: Billy Burden – radio show Workers’ Playtime around the 1950s.)

Whatever the motivation, a task one might have expected to take two sessions was completed in one:

The first-class refreshments at tea-break might have had something to do with the productivity level of the workforce: two specialities specially imported from abroad.  Bara Brith (lit. ‘speckled bread’) had been brought back from a trip to Wales.  The other had been bought (largely, I think, on account of the advertising slogan) at nowhere more exotic than a South-Oxfordshire Tesco, where a very excited employee had recognized the product at once, and explained that in Jamaica it is served at Easter time, with cheese:

Both loaves were served this morning sliced and spread with butter.  Mwynhewch eich bwyd!   (‘Enjoy!’  I have no idea what that is in Jamaican patois.)

To add to the Green Gym tally of success today, two other jobs were done as well.  There were some small trees to be taken out (for the benefit of the others growing in the area); and there were nettles to be slashed, where they were growing in anti-social locations.

“Oh, well,” as Billy Burden would say, “been lovely ’avin’ a chat.  I’d better be goin’ now.  ’Tis a long way back to Dorset.  Cheerio, cheerio.”

A Green-Gym Mystery

“Two of our forks are looking a bit weak at the knees and may not survive the day.”

So predicted the ‘tool-fairy’ ahead of today’s session, before adding hastily, doubtless recalling a catalogue of previous incidents: “But this is not an invitation to a fork-breaking competition!”  (Slightly unfair: all our fork-breaking has been strictly non-competitive.)

“I empathise with the two forks,” replied one volunteer.

“Who’s bringing the four candles?” asked another.

It had been fine and dry too, till October wandered by.  Nevertheless, a goodly number of Green-Gymmers, all ready with our waterproofs, had volunteered to work on a new site.  ‘New’ in the sense that the venue was new to us; also that this particular parcel of ground is being re-worked from low-grade pasture into a conservation-friendly habitat.  When the project has been completed, the field will be the Cholsey Churchyard Wildflower Meadow until such time that it is needed for burial of the dead of the parish of St Mary’s Cholsey.

Meantime, there is the small matter of preparing the land for re-sowing.  What wildflower seed really likes is bare earth:

For one person working alone this would be two winters’ worth of digging.  For a Green-Gym team, a morning’s work:

Before

After

Waterproofs were not, in the end, needed, as a window of beautiful weather opened up after the wind and rain of the day before, and ahead of further bands of rain and wind forecast for later on.  The rain had softened the soil nicely.  The breeze was just enough to keep us cool as we laboured.  And the sunshine helped the spot to look its best:

Admittedly there was little of wildlife interest, barring an addition to our catalogue of interesting slugs.  I am not sure I had ever seen a spotted or tiger-stripe slug before:

Many hands did indeed make for light work, and the usual lively conversation made the time pass remarkably quickly.  Discussion covered “beer, politics, more beer, religion, more beer, volunteer options, and anything seen on the news which took our fancy.”

The parish churchyard itself is best known for the grave of Agatha Christie, who is reputed to be the world’s best-selling novelist.  The memorial stone which caught my attention, however, was this one, on account of the span of dates instead of the more usual 1914-18 (or, less often, 1914-19, where servicemen concerned had been involved in the war against Turkey): 

Given the location of today’s session, there just had to be an element of mystery about our day.  Nothing to pique the curiosity of M Poirot, or engage the interest of Miss Marple, but a mystery all the same: the mystery of the missing fork.  13 Green-Gymmers went to work with one fork each.  At the end of the session, 13 Green-Gymmers returned to our RV point, each bearing a fork.  Collect up all the forks, and count them: 12.  Go back and check that no-one had absent-mindedly returned to base not carrying a fork: nothing found.  What are we to deduce: that a garden fork has somehow dissolved into thin air?