How do you call break time when you are spread across 3
worksites?
Starring: Adrian, Ally (Myself), Andy H, Andy S, Anna,
Christine, David, Gordon, Jack, Jean, Jenny, Martin, Mary, Neil, Sue and Victor
Guest starring: Ranger Craig
Having last been on a workday in September 2021 at Dunham, I was in need of another workday, so I booked my tickets for June and was ready for another workday at Dunham, however with the rail strikes playing havoc with holiday makers I asked for a refund and went to see my parents instead. It’s Saturday 5th November now and I’m finally on my way to Manchester for a long awaited and much needed workday. I’ve been awake since about 4am, thinking am I going to miss my alarm, as with the trains on strike again I booked myself a coach ticket and I am currently watching the Scottish night turn to day….I’m going get some shut eye and I’ll come back to you later.
It’s Sunday Morning now and after a great night’s sleep, no I didn’t manage any sleep on the way South, 16 Volunteers, yes you read that right, met Ranger Craig in the old car park at Styal. When the email first went out about the workday, the task was burning some pre cut Rhododendron but with so many volunteers signing up Craig had to think again. He had 3 tasks lined up for us, one was the aforementioned Rhodi burning, another was fence replacing and building and the other task was footpath maintenance. I started my day fence building which entailed digging a hole and using shovollers to get the soil out of the hole. Adrian commented that the spades that were provided where not up to his specification and he had a better one in his car, he went off to get it and it was used for about 5 mins before it preceded to break, it was at least 40 years old! Our 3 worksites were spread out over the estate so it wasn’t easy to call breaktime, after a few texts of “Are you coming for cake?"; we all met up by the fire side for Sue’s delicious Lemon Drizzle Cake.
After break I swapped with Christine and went with the group doing footpath maintenance. Craig had originally said that this groups task was move the heras fence and bottoms from the path they were on that was providing a diversion round a fallen tree, the majority of this was done by break time, the other part of this group’s job was to shovel some small stones that could be called hardcore into wheelbarrows and wheel it along the path a short distance and pour on to the path by a bridge, to make the path less boggy. As it was a rather damp and slippery underfoot day the stones didn’t seem to make much difference but I’m sure they will in the future. As it was about a 10 minute walk back to the fire site we stopped our shovelling and just before 1pm, our pre arranged lunchtime, and headed back to the fire but not before we thought we’d lost Andy H, he hadn’t realised the time! After lunch I decided to try our 3rd task, the Rhodi burning. There was a good fire going and a large pile of Rhodis to be burned. The fire and pile of Rhodis were on a slope and with it being wet under foot and the Autumn we had to be careful so as not to slip on the leaves and slide down the hill too far. The Rhodis in the pile were also a wee bit tangled, so it sometimes had to be lopped and sawed to make it easier to get it off the pile and on to the fire. Gordon, Neil and I decided to form a chain to get the Rhodis on to the fire, this seemed to work well. Some people dragged Rhodis, some people chopped and some people threw Rhodi onto the fire. At about 3pm with all the Rhodis on the fire, burning away merrily, we decided to call it a day. We barriered off the fire and gathered up all the tools, some were a little trickier to find as they had got buried under the autumn leaves, once all tools had been located we headed back to the car park. Craig thanked us for our help and it finally clicked to him who I actually was.
He said to Me “So you’re Ally who sends the emails?” Yes Craig, that’s the one!
The sun never really came out but the company was sparkling. It was splendid to see you all
I hope it’s not so long next time,
Ally
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