Wet and Windy

 Wet and Windy: that’s what the weather soothsayers predicted for the weekend, and by golly, they were right, about the wet at least. The wind had exhausted itself earlier, so in the spirit of being thankful for small mercies we can be grateful for that at least. Nonetheless, 14 common-sensibly challenged martyrs arrived in pouring rain to do the Team Leaders’ bidding, having frequently checked their phones hoping for the message calling the session off. That old chestnut about there being no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothing, had a certain relevance today, but mostly it looked like a chance to sport headgear that in any other circumstances would expose them to ridicule (and did here too, as it happens).

The advertised tasks inviting us to attend today were to trim back the scrub encroaching on the boardwalk, and to clear the section beside the spur of the boardwalk leading to Bradfield Road. Here’s how the pre-cut crew had left that bit on Friday.

In the event, such were the conditions that we only dealt with the latter task, so at least the snowdrops can look forward to an un-cluttered emergence in the Spring. Cutting back soaking wet scrub felt possibly hazardous, as well as trying the patience of the assembled company, whose sense of being virtuous might wear a trifle thin, so that job was quite correctly left for next time.

What was there awaiting our attention looked to be quite a lot…

… but with a couple over a dozen of us loading two drag sheets (matching some people’s outfits, you’ll note), it was soon gone.

You can’t clear cut vegetation without creating a pile nearby: John here is a modelling a fetching outfit in varying shades of yellow, atop today’s pile.

Such was the intensity of our efforts (getting us over-warm beneath our waterproofs) that we had finished after a mere 30 minutes or so. Standing around in the rain to imbibe the usual beverages lacked appeal, so we adjourned to the storage container instead, where a pop-up refreshment stop was set up. This week there was no Nina, and therefore no apple cake, which was as can be seen was a further blow to our already dampened spirits.

Despite that, some hardy souls preferred the al fresco experience: the trolley, resplendent in its new wheels, had no choice, there being no room at the container.

Never mind, it’s all good as Grizzly is back (and it had cut beautifully) and it’s already getting ready for Christmas!

Here’s how that little patch looks following our soggy efforts.

Here’s Team Leader Margaret’s message of thanks:

Hello all

Well what can I say, now that the sun is shining and you have all dried out? The leaders were just amazed that 14 of you braved the heavy rain to clear the Bradfield spur. Your dedication to the Common and your community is awe inspiring, either that or you are all as mad as a box of frogs. Despite the rain, the work was quickly and cheerfully accomplished. So thank you and we look forward to the omens of spring, the snowdrops.

Hopefully in two weeks’ time the sun will shine on us as we cut back the scrub that is encroaching on the boardwalk.

Thank you

Margaret for the team leaders.

 

A trip to Cley Marshes – the NWT reserve that our warden George also looks after to magnificent effect – last Wednesday was eventful, not so much for the birds, but the wind. Coming straight from the Arctic, it hit me with great force. Opening the door of the first hide I visited was a particular shock: the door itself had every intention of leaving its hinges and decamping to the Coast Road, en route to somewhere calmer. Those central hides face north, so peering out of them tends to be a chilly experience at this time of year. Usually, the reward is hordes of great birds to watch, but this time all I could see were a few windblown ducks, intermittently panicked by patrolling marsh harriers. A different hide gave a different view, this time including some 70 brent geese, so that was nice. Feeling the need to stimulate my circulation in a Captain Oates sort of way, I decided to walk back towards Salthouse and then down the famous East Bank, which heads directly to Cley Beach. Strangely, almost no other people had opted for that excursion, and wisely so. Holding onto the peak of your cap whilst trying to focus binoculars is an example of the sort of multi-tasking that men famously cannot do. Only by turning my back to the wind could I see anything – but what I did see was a crowd, a host even, obviously not of golden daffodils, but wigeon, my second favourite duck. (Pintail, since you ask.)

Moving from A to B

 On a stunningly beautiful morning, 21 volunteers assembled on Warren Road, in order to clear material cut on Area B a couple of months previously. This small step across the boardwalk, but a giant leap according to the normal schedule, was needed because reeds encroaching onto the top end of that section were cut at the same time as the year’s main target for this part of the Common was also mown – and clearing that has taken up the last three working parties.

At first glance the task seemed daunting: there was clearly a lot of stuff to move, and it had absorbed a lot of moisture during the time it had been lying there. Would one session be enough?

The only thing was to knuckle down and scoop some of it onto the drag sheets. Just look at that blue sky!

And drag sheets was the appropriate term, for we had nowhere suitable to attach the winch, so all the sheets were going to need to be dragged by hand, in the old-fashioned way. Therefore, it was important not to overload them. An innocent question about whether the piles were small enough generated a certain amount of unnecessary ribaldry, in much the same way as it does almost every time.

Perhaps it was because we were working in a relatively small area, or perhaps it was because there were a lot more of us than for any other session of this season, but the sheets seemed to be constantly on the move, and traffic jams sometimes happened.

Of course, once you have dragged them to the dumping point, you have to turn them over in order to empty them. It can be an amusing time.

On this occasion erstwhile winchman Noel was at his accustomed post, sans winch, but with pitchfork. He tried to declare he was there for forking, but it’s not easy to enunciate clearly in the midst of physical exertion. In addition to that activity, he it was who greeted each sheet and directed it to the most suitable spot. He was therefore the forking greeter, and inevitably he did it well. All this amused those of us with juvenile mentalities.

Tipping out can be where unsteadiness catches out the unwary, and it again never fails to cause amusement.

Team Leader Margaret was the sufferer this time. We hope she doesn’t find it embarrassing; it could have been so much worse Margaret!

As we’ve seen before, our techniques are constantly evolving, so I am proud today to announce of the ‘Westlake Variant’ for hauling a loaded sheet. In this exciting development, in addition to the two pullers hauling on the ropes attached to the sheet’s front corners, with this variant a third puller is between the other two, pulling the ropes attached to the rear of the sheet. Simple, but effective (the method, as well as its inventor.)

Some of the vegetation had evaded the mower, so Team Leader Kevin set to work with a “slasher”.

Here he stands, posing proudly with the trusty tool. He was proud to declare he had caused absolutely no injuries.

Seeing Brian chasing after a sheet with a loaded pitchfork put me in mind of the famous cover of the Led Zeppelin IV album. Here we tried to re-create it.

Were we successful? You decide.

Do you have trouble remembering the names of people you have only recently met? When I started volunteering on the Common way back in the Jurassic period it seemed that every other man was called John – so guessing one had that name was always worth a punt. But times change and fashions move on, so that now it’s Andrew, and today we had a full set, with three Andrews in attendance. (A fourth of that name lives somewhere near Windsor, and we unsurprisingly we didn’t see him.)

Despite our early misgivings, by 11.00 the job was done – in time for us to join together to observe the two-minute silence. I think that short period of calm reflection was appreciated by us all, and it was made all the better by the accompaniment of a sweetly singing robin.

Then it was time for a cuppa, and of course some of Nina’s now famous apple cake.

After this the party broke up, and we left the Warren Road end of Area B looking like this. 

Here is Team Leader Julie’s message of thanks:

Hello all

I hope you are all enjoying the autumn sunshine and warmth.  21 volunteers enjoyed it this morning on the common. We were clearing the last of the cut reed on the Fen area by Warren Road.  As there was no tree to fix the winch to, the sheets were pulled by hand and it was a conveyor belt of sheets skating over the ground to be emptied. Everyone was in great spirits and the work was completed in record time today. So thank you all for your hard work.

Thanks also to you all for the two minutes of silence at 11am. It was beautiful in the sunshine with the birdsong - a perfect space to remember and reflect.

We shall return in two weeks, cutting the area on Bradfield Road in preparation for the snowdrops and clearing back scrub along the boardwalk to ensure it remains accessible over the winter months and into the spring.

Take care

Julie for the TLs.

 

Caused no doubt by the unusually mild weather and a southerly air flow, the usual autumn influx of migrant birds has not yet happened – at least so far as I have seen. There are now a few redwings about (Gilbert White noted that they “begin to appear at last” on 10^th November 1776), and blackbird numbers appear to be increasing, having been worryingly low lately. Occasional skeins of geese pass noisily overhead, while flocks of gulls are following the busy ploughs and beet lifting machines. Rev. White also noted at this time in 1770 that “Lime-trees leaves fall all at once”. Gilbert, I hear you: our neighbour’s Limes have shed their leaves too, and under them can be found our little garden by the intrepid delver into leaf drifts. By 1773 he was noting flooding from rains that had lasted for ten weeks, and the next year he declared 11^th November to be the first day of winter, with snow on the ground.

Area A done at last

Benjamin had stormed at us throughout Wednesday night and a lot of Thursday, and it continued to rain on and off ever since. The giant sponge that is the Common absorbed all that was thrown at it, but it also soaked the previously cut vegetation that had been lying there for a month or so, awaiting our attention. And then the wind direction changed – enough to send Mary Poppins packing. It swizzled round to the north and cor blast! it felt cold. The comparison with the wave of heatwaves we had experienced in the summer (apparently the hottest since dinosaurs bestrode the Earth and Granny was a girl) was shocking, so out came hats, scarves and gloves: and even more when I stepped outside. So it was that the magnificent 16 volunteers who came to today’s work party will have approached the task with some trepidation, knowing that the light work of the previous sessions was no more. Most of all, they would have been fervently hoping that the wonderful winch had been returned to its box, as dragging that sodden stuff by hand again was not going to be much fun.

Happily, it was: here’s the evidence, with winchman Noel for scale:

Despite all that blather above about the change in the weather, our usual luck held and it was actually very sunny; sunny enough to warm us up nicely thanks. Your correspondent was recruited back into the role of winchman’s wingman, there being no better alternative on the day. Humorous colleagues asked Noel how his apprentice was getting on, and before you knew it I had become a Petty (very petty) Officer, before returning all the way down the snake to a YTS intern. Always hiding my light under a bushel, I can just be glimpsed up to no good behind the heap here.

Those readers still with retentive memories will remember that this part of the Common (Area A for those in the know) is home to a nest of wasps. It remains a no-go area, suitably signed, so we once again had to create our dump site accordingly.

Although the last two working parties had been slaving away on this patch, there was still a lot to move.

And all the while the heap kept growing, such that winchman and wingman were unaccountably barricaded in.

And here’s the view out from behind the barricade.

Only a few hours before, the clocks had changed and we were now operating on good old GMT. In announcing the session a momentary aberration made Julie think the clocks fall forward in the autumn, and rest assured, she was teased about this – in a kindly way you understand. In penance, here she is on her own, but raking it in as usual.

It’s possible that this uncertainty may have infected the catering team, for strident calls from their labouring colleagues about it being almost half time seemed to fall on deaf ears. However, persistence prevailed and they relented. Here we see them saying a little prayer, seeking our forgiveness.

The happy throng convened for a sunny break…

… although it pains me to report that the cup of tea intended for me was passed to another, and I was forced to wait thirstily for a replacement to be produced. Only Nina’s reliably excellent apple cake could soothe me.

Placed well back from the actual tipping point as Noel and I were, there was little chance for musical interaction. He did however put me on to a band he had stumbled across on the internet, called ‘Chicks on Speed’ with their number “We don’t play guitars”. Back home, a quick search also revealed a link to their “Wordy Rappinghood” on YouTube which I at least greatly enjoyed. A band name like that intrigued us: for the female members of our own group we considered ‘Ladies in Lavender’, but that’s been done, although we eventually felt pleased enough with ‘Girls on Caffeine.’

Tea break over, we returned to the fray with added vigour. Just as well, as it is often necessary to steer the drag sheet on its course to the tipping point, and this can be quite a strenuous business, as illustrated here.

We managed to complete the task on time: here’s how Area A looks now.

All that was left to be done was to form a convoy and get the tools back to base, happy in the knowledge of a job well done – until the repeat performance the other side of the boardwalk next time.

Here is Team Leader Margaret’s message of thanks:

Hello All.

A massive thank you today for your hard work. The terrain was uneven and the cuttings hard to collect but still you all managed to smile. It's an enormous heap that the winch crew have managed to construct, only made possible by the pitchforkers (If that isn't a word it should be). What is even more amazing is that you were able to arrive on time, despite Julie's helpful advice in her usually efficient call to arms. It's good to know that you are fallible Julie. I am sure that we worked so much better after coffee as a result of Nina's excellent apple cake.

Hopefully we will see you in two weeks’ time when we are expecting to move to area B to clear the reeds that were cut 6 weeks ago, so I am sorry but more frustrating clearance required.

I do hope you all appreciate how much we value your efforts. You are absolutely wonderful.

Margaret for the team leaders.

Between Area A and Lower Street is the spot so eccentrically known as The Hill. A tree there had died and was in danger of falling on the overhead power lines, so it had to go. Now its memorial is a large outcrop of fungus – the much-maligned honey fungus is my guess. The question is, was it the fungus that killed the tree, or is it merely the beneficiary of something that was already dying?

 

All change

In his ode To Autumn, John Keats introduced the by now somewhat over-worked phrase “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”. In the poem he bangs on about apples, hazels and “later flowers for bees”, but he could also have mentioned the fungi which push up their fruiting bodies in such profusion at this time of year. Granted, it’s hard to come up with a rhyme for fungi, but he could perhaps have had a crack at fungus. Here’s an example of one I found on School Common earlier in the week. I believe it to be a Shaggy Parasol.

And then there are spiders. Judging by the many inhabitants of my house, this seems to have been a particularly fruitful year to be a spider, but once again back in 1819 JK didn’t think to mention them. I don’t presume to tell him his trade, but he did mention cider in the poem, so there’s a ready-made rhyme there. This cracking Garden Spider image comes to us courtesy of Team Leader Margaret.

There seems to me to be a huge number of acorns this year, much to the delight of Jays no doubt. They have a special pouch in their throats, the better to stuff in as many acorns as they can, like us playing “Chubby Bunny” with marshmallows in sillier times. I don’t know who declares a year where there is a surfeit of nuts as a “mast year”, but I wouldn’t mind betting 2025 will qualify. I have read that when trees are weather-stressed, as they must have been this year, they drop their leaves early and over-produce their seeds. The theory is that in this way, should the tree die there’s a good chance of many more successors coming along when conditions are more favourable.

Our fair-weather friends, the economic migrants of summer have mostly left us now, seeking insect prey further south. I have seen no swallows or house martins for a couple of weeks now, although some might still be clinging on somewhere. We’re still getting some warm and sunny days, and then the ivy flowers are buzzing with loads of wasps and Ivy bees – I had an exciting close view of a hornet the other day, although it declined to have its portrait taken – and I respected that. Most butterflies are now resting in one life-phase or another, and in short, the impression is of a general shut-down. Soon however the skies should be full of incoming geese, yapping like a pack of puppies (I have already seen a few), while the winter thrushes arrive to take the place of the missing songbirds.

Amongst all that change, one constant is the efforts made by our volunteers to keep the Southrepps Commons in good order, and to that end 10 of us arrived on schedule this morning. We were in for a shock: for a long time now we have relied on there being a winch to haul the laden drag sheets to the dumping sites, but this week the bad news imparted to us by Team Leaders Julie and Kevin was that it wasn’t there. They had looked high and low in the storage container, leaving no corner un-explored, but we were definitely deficient in the winch department to the tune of one. We can only hope it’s back next time.

So we had to revert to the old way of working from many years ago, when we were all many years younger, fitter and perhaps even stronger. That is, hauling the blessed sheets a long way across uneven ground.

And then you get some ladies on the pull!

Thankfully, the material we were shifting had been cut two or more weeks ago and the general lack of rain meant that it was not sodden. By only lightly loading the sheets the job was manageable, and we found a rhythm so that sometimes full ones were crossing with recently emptied ones.

As last time, the unloading had to be done somewhere where wasps weren’t, cutting down the options, so we returned to the already prodigious heap from our previous visit. That meant heaving the sheets to the summit, with a lot of effort.

Once this became impossible without oxygen at the advance camps, Noel, the winchman without a winch to man, remained at the foot of the mountain, in order to pitchfork the stuff dumped at base camp.

Nonetheless, there were slack times when he was able to take his ease; despite appearances, he declared the wheelbarrow to be his seat of choice on these occasions.

The half-time break came, and not before time we felt. The select band gathered round in a bunch so tight you could have thrown a blanket over the lot – but no blankets were on hand, and a heavy wet tarpaulin seemed unsporting.

Once again, Nina produced her now famous apple cake, to general acclaim. I had never eaten an apple cake until six weeks ago; now I count it as part of my staple diet.

While we were all together, we were shocked to be told about a very unpleasant incident that took place yesterday at the children’s play area at the Recreation Ground. A woman on official business was assaulted by persons unknown, objecting to her doing her job, but we must hope that the two perpetrators are identified and brought to justice.

Suitably refreshed, we returned to the fray, keeping a neat defensive line such as Norwich City could do well to emulate.

The plan was to keep within a defined area, bounded by two telegraph poles, but Team Leader Kevin (henceforth to be known as ‘Team Leader Mission Creep Kevin’ strayed outside the area (much like the aforementioned footy team).

He’s clearly using a pitchfork in that photo, but went on to employ a rake too. Not such a thrilling revelation you might justifiably feel, but the point about it is that come the time to pack up our trolleys and leave, Mission Creep, perhaps with a pang of conscience, asked where the rake was. He was sent back to that area outside the area, and to his great joy was able to triumphantly hold the missing tool aloft.

Before you can cart the tools away, you must fold the sheets, and this is not a job to be undertaken ill advisedly or recklessly. We therefore leave it to the experts.

Just as we were about to leave, we were visited by that feline legend of Southrepps, the famous Nacho.

It wasn’t clear whether he approved of our efforts, but we don’t see why he wouldn’t, as this is how the site looked when we finished. We certainly felt that without the aid of the winch we had put in quite a shift!

You might wonder what music was discussed this week. Andrew asked us a good quiz question, which was to list the five members of the Travelling Wilburys. Four were easy, but the fifth set us pondering. Eventually Jeff Lynne’s (via Jeff Wayne) name popped up, and we moved on to debating the best Eagles tracks, as there had been a recent programme about that band.  

Here is Team Leader Julie’s message of thanks:

Hello all

Thank you to the ten volunteers who turned out today to help us clear more of the fen area on the Warren Road end of the site. More importantly, thank you to all of you for staying when we had to announce that we had not got a winch to use! Everyone just rolled up their sleeves and part filled the sheets and dragged the sheets to the dump site, followed by much clambering up the heap to pull the raked material up. An absolutely brilliant effort from everyone.  Luckily we were re-fuelled at the half time break by tea/coffee and apple cake (thanks to Kevin, Linda and Nina).

We will be back on the common in two weeks’ time (hopefully with the winch!).

Regards,  Julie and the TLs

 

We often refer to the “Chadwick bench” as a rendezvous point for work parties. It was put there by their family as a memorial to Alan and Muriel Chadwick and had begun to deteriorate. It’s good to see that it has been replaced with a smart new one, which is sure to be well used by many grateful walkers in its ideal spot for a breather and taking in the view across the flower-rich central area of the Common.

 

With the death of Dame Jane Goodall, a beacon of light for the natural world has gone out. She was of course mainly known for her work revealing the extremely close affinity between Chimpanzees and Humans, but she also cared deeply for every organism, including ourselves, in that incalculably complicated system of life – the original World-wide Web. She remained hopeful that if we all did our own little bit by changing our ways and bringing pressure to bear on the governments and corporations which hold the future in their hands, cumulatively we could, just possibly, halt the destruction of the natural world and all that that entails, and thus avert catastrophe. She was a compassionate activist, caring not only about the terrible loss of biodiversity around the world, but also its impact on our own species. Her aim was to promote harmony between humanity and the natural world, and part of her formidable legacy is “Roots and Shoots”, which in turn is part of the Jane Goodall Institute. According to their website, it “nurtures young minds and hands to build a sustainable future through community-led conservation actions”; no bad thing, I’d say.