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?

When September Ends

Summer having come, but not yet passed here, it has been an exceptionally dry September.  This v good from PoV countryside labourers.

For where site wardens have shaved the ground with their brush cutters, workers tooled up with fork and rake have to come after and remove all that spent vegetation.  They look ever so much happier during the briefing if they know the cuttings will be dry, therefore lighter to handle. 

Part of today’s task was raking again: this time not dead wildflowers from a water-meadow, but dead reeds from an Anglo-Saxon drainage ditch.  Fortunately, across the UK it has been the driest September since the Met Office started keeping rainfall records in 1910.  There did not appear to be any Green-Gymmers thinking, either literally or metaphorically, “Wake me up when September ends” as they rounded up reluctant reeds, and moved them to the compost heap:

Some volunteers opted for transporting by tarpaulin.  Others, myself included, preferred to persist with pitchforks, despite the reluctance of reeds to allow themselves to be intertwined into a bundle which may be easily picked up.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the public footpath, there was a more modern channel to be dug out, where it had become overgrown and silted up:

Before

After

Thankfully, this is only an annual maintenance job.  That it makes for a hard work-out, I can testify from having switched position from pitchforker to shoveler for the last leg of the morning’s session, to ensure the job got finished. 

The only complaint I heard during the morning was the heat of the sun on the back of the neck.  IMHO that is a nice problem to have.  Certainly preferable to cold rain trickling down the inside of one’s collar!  Depending on one’s viewpoint, also preferable to being stuck indoors and not able to enjoy the feel of sunshine on skin at all.