23 Green-Gym Sessions until Christmas

By ‘C’ and the Session Leader:

Only the third warmest and driest summer for a century it may be in England, but perhaps it is precisely because it is the hottest since 1976 that there are retailers who would have us thinking about Christmas.

Do you feel cooler if you contemplate this?

First sign of (commercial) Xmas 2018,
spotted in Wallingford Oxon, 12 July

The range of tasks on offer today may have had a certain Santa-Claus largesse feel about it: moving compost heap from yard to woodland-area, where it can be a reptile habitat; stripping paint off a garden bench ready for oiling; clearing reeds overgrowing boardwalk; sweeping leaves and brushing cobwebs off landing stage; removing nettles; sweeping and tidying slipway; clearing floating-weed from pond, and topping up the water level; and fixing new hook on Reserve gate.  There was, however, no winter-related reason for this sudden abundance: it was just that there were large numbers of volunteers today; and tomorrow is the day of the ‘Goring Gap in Bloom’ inspection! 

The most noticeable thing on arrival was that a great many more notice-boards had been put up at the site since we were last there.  Very smart they look too:

Approach from South Stoke (beside Ridgeway footpath)

Approach from Goring

Directions for those with wheels - note the flourishing hedge on the left, planted and cared for at intervals by us

The big task was to move the compost heap.  

We always hope that Green-Gym teams will execute their tasks as beautifully as a Perisic or Mbappé and team-mates, rather than those whose job it was to prepare some of the ceremonial the day before in a city where minds were perhaps already focussed on toasting Les Bleus?  And we are always keen to complete a job.

Not everything, however, goes entirely to plan, not even at Green Gym.  The session leader himself was spotted confidently setting off with a barrowload of compost from the yard area …

only to have to stop, moments later, to ask the way:

The task looked easy enough.  For the most part it was, once we had all got ourselves orientated, and acquired shovels to use alongside pitchforks.  The only difficulty was that there was much more to move than first appeared.  One volunteer was convinced that this compost heap had Tardis-like properties.  The team (by now with several substitutions) was still going strong on this at the end of the session – and no, this is not a posed photo:

Elsewhere, one set of tools not usually used at Green Gym had been set out, more in hope than in expectation that there would be a rush of volunteers to use them:

Indeed there was no great rush of Green-Gymmers to start sanding and oiling benches, but those who did go for it, did so with gusto.  By session end, not only had the first bench been stripped of its old paint, but it and another one had been oiled as well:

Meanwhile, one volunteer had got stuck into wielding a broom on the landing stage.  Leaf-sweeping, easy.  Cobweb removal required some patience and persistence – would not have been a job for an arachnophobe!

Other volunteers turned their hand to dealing with nettles which had grown far too big for their boots:

Most volunteers, however, disappeared to ‘side up’ the pathways on site, including the boardwalk:

They ‘disappeared’ in the sense that the foliage often made it hard to see even the next person working alongside, also in the sense that the session leader spent some considerable time looking for them, to no avail:

It turned out that while he was off searching for them, they had already returned to base for half-time!

As ever, there was some improvisation of coffee-tables – as well as a chance to remove excess layers on a warm day:

And as often, there was some special delicacies to sample.  This time, maple creme cookies (biscuits à la crème d’érable):

For today we had visitors from Canada.  They are ‘regulars’, as they have been coming, at intervals of 18 months - 2 years, all the way across the Atlantic to do Green Gym ;) since the days when one of the family was earning one of these for time spent doing conservation work:

Scout badges

In the second half, Team Canada made short work of leaf-litter on the slipway, with some slick passing between players:

The simplest job of all, it turned out, had already been done: to put a new hook on a Reserve gate.   So as volunteers became free from their other tasks, they attended to the tasks which felt never-ending: compost-heap removal; and nettle-pulling.  The compost heap would have needed another hour’s working on it; fortunately, the judges are not expected until tomorrow afternoon.  As for nettle-pulling, well that really is a never-ending job at that site, but you could see that progress was being made:

Oh, and there was one job still waiting to be done:

A pond which could use a top-up

All the same, we think/hope the squad did a good job (on a fait du bon boulot).  By session-end our minds were certainly turning to other matters.

For our day also featured feasting and festive quiz.  That is because today was our AGM.  And Wallingford Green-Gym AGMs are done in style, ie informally, over lunch at a nearby hostelry:

Each year we try to present the information about the previous year in a different format.  This time, it was incorporated into a quiz which had a numerical theme.  Which proved absorbing, but very hard.  Well done to our winners! who included one of our Canadian colleagues.  [Je pense que cela mérite des félicitations. – Ed.]

Until next time – à la prochaine!

One small site, many habitats

An extra-long edition of the blog, to make up for the fact that next week’s is likely to be late in being published, and brief, the date being our AGM. 

Photographs: ‘C’ and session-leader.  Text by ‘C’: 

Where would you most like to be on a beautiful English summer’s day?  As today has most certainly been.

Green-Gymmers generally tend to head for where wild things are.   On a hot day, some creatures like to have their feet in cool water.  Likewise a couple of our volunteers, at least in the second half of the morning:

We had all begun the session firmly on dry land, and indeed attending to matters at the level of our own feet.  Some fell into category ‘human-engineered’, others were strictly nature’s own.

For sure, eyes did turn to the sky at various points in the morning.  We were more than usually aware of working close to “the airfield near the village whose clock has two elevens”, as William Joyce, aka ‘Lord Haw Haw’, infamously identified it in one of his WW2 broadcasts made from Nazi Germany:

One of us had his eye very much on the time this morning, as he had a fairly good idea of what air movements to expect, and when.

The first flying thing to attract our attention, however, was during the preliminary briefing, and was an entirely natural phenomenon.  A banded demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens – ‘ours’ female, by the look of it/her) had landed on the sunhat of one of the workers:

Getting down to brass tacks, location and need for the first task were obvious:

To repair, meant first of all taking up the old:

Which in turn meant that within a very short space of time, care was needed when moving about on site:

While the engineers decided what exactly was required to construct the new stretch of boardwalk, ‘lay’ members of the team were engaged in fetching and carrying.  First removing materials which were too decayed to be re-used.  Then bringing specialist items as needed:

It is not very often that one gets to see the ‘inside’, or rather the underside, of one of these walkways:

Meanwhile, other Green-Gymmers were also removing the wire-overlay from a stretch of boardwalk.   They, however, were doing this quite deliberately, for the purpose of replacing it with something which would not have the same capacity to catch on footwear and trip people up if it were allowed to get old and frayed.

You will have noticed the ‘path closed’ sign.  Two similar signs had been put up at the other end of the footpath:

Only three members of the public attempted to walk along the path regardless, having walked all the way along from the Benson-village end.  They had to turn back.

The new anti-slip material was tape.  Cutting this into even lengths to fit neatly in the footfall zone of each plank took three pairs of hands:

To fit the tape in place, meant first of all finding the end …

“At least it’s not as bad as double-sided carpet tape!”

then hammering down any protruding metalwork on the board …

Session-leader assists while tape-fitter is still trying to free sticky tape from its backing strip

brushing away any dust …

finally laying the tape:

When a whole stretch had been done, one could step back and admire, before moving on to the next section:

Time will tell whether the new anti-slip guards do prove effective, and how long they will last.  Even before we left, we were predicting that they would need to be stapled in place.  To sand each plank, for maximum adhesion of tape to surface, would have been an impractical proposition.

With two volunteer-teams working with hammers – to say nothing of noises off, from the A4074 – it was rather a noisy Green Gym this morning:

On the more peaceful southern side of the site, other Green-Gymmers were disappearing into shady greenery:

Among the verdant display, on a patch of re-wilded land, were small hazel trees:

These we had planted in a previous session.  The trouble was, we could not remember how many, or precisely where.  This was a pity because treelets were in danger of being overwhelmed by the more vigorous growth of weeds. 

If they live to be a hundred (which they may do, if coppiced), they will be laughing at the weeds which tried to outcompete them in their younger days.  Meanwhile, however, it was up to Green-Gymmers to find infant trees …

then trim the weeds, and leave each sapling standing free:

By tea-break, that team was satisfied that all small hazel-trees had been located and freed from their bondage to weeds.  And volunteers were ready to pile tools on a very convenient ‘tool tree’:

Refreshments were taken at the picnic table in the centre of a flourishing wildflower meadow.  At this stage of the year it is hard to believe that come autumn we will almost certainly be back here, raking dishevelled brown remnants of this luxuriantly vivid growth:

After the break, the weeding party turned attention to the stream, alongside which the path runs.  This is a different habitat again, with its own distinctive riparian and woodland-edge vegetation:

In many places, the stream is looking very pretty:

The water not only looks pure: it is tested regularly, and last time was found to be of drinking quality.  Moreover, when standing within the hollow ‘U’ of the banks, it is almost impossible to hear sounds of traffic – hard to credit that a main road runs so close by!

In other places, again the problem is slightly over-luxuriant plant growth.  Two Green-Gymmers opted to work from in the stream – with the stream running so clear and shallow, it is easy to see where the bottom is firm.  One volunteer was working in an area where there was not too much overhanging the line of the stream.  The other soon found himself tackling a small jungle – loppers are not usually carried by draping them over the back of the neck!

The other area of water calling for Green-Gym attention was a small pond:

Yes, there is open water there.  “Well done for finding it!” was the session-leader’s comment.

Shears proved useful for trimming vegetation on the dry(-ish) banks of the pond.  To remove plants growing in the pond, man-made tools were discarded:

When a heap of pond-plant-life had been pulled out, gradually a dark pool was revealed for passers-by to be wary of:

To remove more of the actual pond plants, a new tool – with hook – was improvised from a found piece of timber:

To the session-leader it may have looked like “just a stick”, but it was the most effective implement.  In the background of the photo above, waits another volunteer to use it when first volunteer is done with it.

Fortunately for blog-readers, I cannot reproduce the foul odours which rose from the pond as the black water was disturbed.  One of our colleagues, who came along to see what the Pond Team was up to, remarked that the murky depths would be:

“Good for bod snorkelling.”

“Yuk!” was the response nearly all round.

Possibly rather unwisely, another Green-Gymmer casually remarked, “Well I’d be up for it!” before qualifying this with: “… as long as I had the right kit, and a tetanus jab, etcetera.”

I say ‘unwisely’, because the session-leader was there, and promptly countered, “Well all this can be arranged – and you’ve committed yourself, in front of many witnesses!”

Fortunately, none of us fell in the pond.  It is always embarrassing to fall in water, especially if it happens because you are not paying attention to where you are going – however much you may try to make it look as if that was what you intended to do.  But slipping into that particular area of wild water would mean hogging the bathroom on return home for rather a long time.

Of course, if it were discovered that this black mud has healing or beautifying properties, then the fortune of those responsible for this little nature spot would be made.

Returning to the main body of Green Gym meant walking along the underpass – a path not popular with all volunteers, but not in the same league as the Caminito del Rey:

When the various workforces from today re-assembled at the normal session-end time, we were – as always at Green Gym – free to leave whenever we liked.  Equally – as always at Green Gym – there were plenty of volunteers ready and willing to stay on to get a task finished, to the point where the area could be re-opened to the public. 

For the boardway-repair team had a little bit more to do:

No-one had any compunction about (for once) using power-tools to get the job done

As for me, I headed home – and on the way caught some glimpses of aircraft returning home, or landing at RAF Benson, to refuel after the day’s 100^th-anniversary flypast.  I myself have never seen so many aircraft in the sky at one time – and probably never will again.  The camera does not do justice to the spectacle:

And my Green-Gym colleague was right.  He had correctly predicted when the jets would arrive at the air-station.  I think he must also have been right when he added that the Red Arrows would take off for the last leg of the return-trip to their home base “at 3.30”.  Through my open study-window, the roar of jet engines struck at precisely 15:30.