Back in the fold

 Your usual correspondent’s supply of weekend visitors having dried up and all other excuses having faded like the early morning autumn mist, I was drawn back to The Common for another working party – along with 15 other volunteers, many of whom probably didn’t recognise me. One who did was our welcome newest recruit, but she’s a neighbour and therefore had scant excuse.

The scene of the action was our old friend Area B. As half of the species-rich grassy fen on the Warren Road side of Fox’s Beck, it has to be cut every alternate year. Two weeks ago an excellent start was made on it, and our lot was to carry on whilst keeping calm. Being full of British pluck, this we did, more or less successfully. There was too much left to cut and clear in the two hours available to us, so what we didn’t deal with will have to be finished by our NWT warden George and some volunteers from Cley and Southrepps on the 30^th – the deadline imposed by Natural England for this area.   

In fairly stark contrast to our earlier sessions, when over-heating was the risk, today we tended to arrive wrapped up against a stiff breeze. However, it was still far from cold, and early on Team Leader Margaret announced that she was “hot”; we didn’t know how to take that.

Areas A and B are very different in character from the other parts of the site. Rather than growing nice tall reeds, which particularly when dry are light and easy to handle, here the vegetation is a mass of grasses and many other species to delight the botanists, but induce muscle aches in Sunday volunteers. Already cut to greet us on arrival was a sizeable amount:

Grizzly was being given a good work-out by Grizzly driver Dave, but was thankfully up to the task; a relief after some recent hiccups.

Winchman Dave (a different Dave) was directing operations at the dump site, and like giant grassy molehills, several artfully arranged piles grew under his expert direction.

As has been abundantly evident in the aftermath of the late Queen’s death, tradition is important to us Brits. And we volunteers have our cherished traditions too, as any faithful readers of this blog will be all too aware. Amongst them, the most cherished is the half-time break, and today it came not a moment too soon, as the sky darkened and some serious precipitation was threatened.

In the event, it came to very little, but the wise decision was taken to dispense tea, coffee, and chocolate biscuits under cover at the dump site. (Incidentally, did you notice the reckless way I used an Oxford comma immediately after ‘coffee’? Strike me dead with a thesaurus!)

It is also traditional for someone to fall over, usually at the dump site when tipping the cut material out. For that tradition to be best exercised, it should involve your correspondent, and true to form, I “had a fall”. Having reached the right age to have a fall rather than merely fall over, I like to think I accomplished it with some panache. Panache or not, the usual and inevitable sympathy hilarity was the result. No photographic evidence exists of this event, but that’s not the case with the other serial faller John, who once again managed to be covered by a passing drag sheet. He claimed he was inspecting the underside of the sheet, but we know better. He even managed it a second time: such a graceful roll over - deserving 9 out of 10 easily for style. His dear wife was unconcerned, merely commenting that he “always likes rolling in the hay”. Ahem. This time Team Leader Julie was present with her phone, so here’s the evidence:

New recruit Jenny set to with a will, pitchforking as to the manner born, but also pitching in on what she called “boys’ work”: we boys couldn’t possibly compete.

Almost exactly on the allotted two-hour mark we had completed clearing away all that had been cut. All that was left was to also tidy the tools away; an important part of which (a tradition even), is the correct folding of the drag sheets. Here is the folding crew displaying their skills:

At the end of it all, Area B currently looks like this…

… and here’s what is waiting for George at the end of the month: 

Here is Team Leader Julie’s message of thanks:

Dear all

A huge thank you goes out to the 16 volunteers that cruised through today's work party on the Warren Road side of the Common. As usual we cleared a vast amount of material from the Fen area. We have managed to clear all the way up to the little bench around halfway up the boardwalk to Warren Road.

As the Fen has to be cleared by 30th September the remainder of Area B will have to be cleared by NWT as our next scheduled work party falls after this date. Unfortunately Natural England's strict dates for cutting Fen mean we are unable to achieve cutting and clearing both the central area and all of either Area A or B on the Warren Road side anymore so we have to call in NWT to finish what we cannot clear. 

George, our NWT warden will bring a 'team' of volunteers over from Cley on FRIDAY 30th SEPTEMBER to finish the area we have started up to Warren Road.  Unfortunately for George that is generally only 2-3 people, so if anyone feels they can spare an hour or two on this date to help George you would be most welcome. He will be there most of the day until it's cleared. Margaret will be there from 10am and Julie will be going down around 11.45 for a few hours. We will send a reminder nearer the date just in case any of you can make it for an hour or so.

Otherwise, we will look forward to seeing you at our next scheduled work party in two weeks time.

Regards, Julie (for the Team Leaders)

This being about a nature reserve, a bit of nature now and again seems appropriate. This is the high-viz wearing caterpillar of a Pale Tussock Moth spotted on a gatepost close to the Common recently.