It started as a slightly cooler day today, a welcome change from the heat of the last few weeks. Most of us met Ranger Jason in the main car park before getting a lift in the Lyme Park shuttle bus back to the entrance kiosk where we met Shirley and walked as a group through the gate, up Red Lane, and into the field where we’ve been Himalayan balsam bashing previously.
Today we had Emily joining us for the first time, and also Niamh, who’d only been out with us once before. After putting our bags in the shade under some trees, Jason gave us a safety talk before we started destroying the balsam by pulling it up and snapping the roots off so it couldn’t regrow.
We were all doing really well at making our piles of discarded balsam and we had two of the Lyme Park Youth volunteers join us too, so we were getting a lot done before we stopped for a mid-morning refreshment break with cake.
Afterwards we continued with our task, before stopping a couple of hours later for lunch and a chat.
During the afternoon it started getting warmer. Most of us had hats to wear and some of us decided to work in the shade under the trees.
There was a huge amount of balsam on the other side of a wire fence which I thought I could climb over and join David in destroying. However I soon discovered it was harder than it looked to get into that area and, once I was finally over the fence, I found myself sitting precariously on the pile of balsam that David had pulled up and stacked against the fence. For a while, I was laughing too much to be able to shift my body weight enough to get off it! - but fortunately I managed it in the end.
We all had a great time - we achieved a lot, had a good chat and really enjoyed being outdoors, admiring the butterflies, grasshoppers, bees, dragonflies, damselflies and other insects, on such a wonderful day.
Sadly there was too much balsam to destroy it all today, but hopefully we’ll be back soon to continue our quest.
Sue B
