After the deluge, another work party

This being the final work party of the year, you might think ‘Office Party’. Think again. At office parties people tend to dress up smart and behave badly. Here however, I hope it’s not too insulting to say that dressing smartly receives low priority (particularly, it has been noted, in the case of your usual correspondent), and behaviour is always exemplary ahem. Yesterday, it rained and rained, and then it rained some more. Which is what it has done pretty much for weeks now. That makes our wet fen a very wet fen indeed, so it was with some trepidation that 18 volunteers arrived on an unusually dry morning for a spot of reed clearing and minced pie consumption.

The weather might have been dry, but the ground was definitely not; “small steps!” was the Health and Safety advice. Despite the rather dodgy conditions, there were no falls, and therefore no embarrassing photos to share.

This little frog even looked as if it wanted somewhere drier to live.

The doughty pre-cut team had done a pre-cut four days earlier, and lived to tell the tale, so there was already a mass of soggy and therefore heavy material to transfer to its final resting place at the edge of the area. The area in question being the smaller reedbed at the Lower Street end of the boardwalk, known so poetically as Area F.

Grillo the mower was brought out of its box to cut yet more, so that after a couple of hours of team effort a whole lot of reeds had been cut and shifted.

In the time-honoured way, some well-disguised people forked cut material onto drag sheets…

     

… while others escorted, and with considerable effort steered, the sheets as they were winched to the dump site.

There, they had the pleasure of tipping the stuff out, otherwise known as a workout.

And here we have a good view of the winch at work, in Noel’s skilful hands.

Here’s the obligatory half-time group photo. They’re happy because the mince pies are about to be distributed.  

The catering department is a wonder, but even with them mistakes are possible. Today’s omission of spoons for stirring the tea and coffee called for creative thinking:

Having eaten the said pies, we then felt constrained to work them off. Tiring stuff, eating.

Much like pressed sailors in times gone by hauling up anchors, those doing hard work of tipping out the drag sheets at the dump sites often break into song; we’ve warned you about Noel’s talents in that department before. This time I think he refrained from giving us a refrain, but John did run a considerable risk when referring to himself as the ‘Grindstone Cowboy’, having just urged us to return our noses to the grindstone after the minced pie break. Perhaps it was out of Noel’s earshot, because no rendition of Glen Campbell’s old hit was forthcoming, for which relief much thanks.

When the winch isn’t winching, and Grillo isn’t mowing it can be quite peaceful; this time all that could be heard was the gentle susurration of pitchforks moving cut vegetation.

At almost the end of the session, Area F now looks like this:

Even so, the long distance that the later sheets had to be pulled across meant that we ran out of time before everything could be disposed of, so a couple of heaps have had to be left for the next session, early in 2024.

Here’s the Team Leaders’ message of thanks:

Hello all

That should probably be 'Ho, Ho, Ho' but my voice isn't really deep enough!

Firstly, a big thank you to the 18 volunteers who turned out today.  The wind had dropped from last night and the rain held off so the weather was okay for the time of year.  We all soon warmed up as the cut reed was fairly heavy to move. However, Grillo soon had to come out to cut more reed as we were steaming through it! The break at half time was improved no end by Linda and Kevin kindly supplying mince pies. That fueled us for the second half and the end result was (as always) amazing.  So thank you for your hard work today.

As it's the last session of 2023, can I just say from NWT and all the team leaders a massive thank you to all of our wonderful volunteers for their support and hard work. You are an incredible team of people and we are very grateful for everything you do.

Have a wonderful Christmas and we wish you all a very happy and healthy new year.

Regards, Julie, Margaret, Kevin, John and Sue