Abingdon Green Gym Blog

The Conservation Volunteers are pleased to announce the relaunch of our monthly newsletter Greenzine. Whilst we might not be out volunteering in the way we usually are, The Conservation Volunteers have been working hard behind the scenes and we want to share that information with you. This week we will be relaunching our monthly Greenzine, an opportunity for us to share wonderful stories about our volunteers, fantastic new partnership opportunities, as well as some of our favourite bits of content from the past month, be it books, TV shows, radio shows, anything at all! You are receiving this email as you have previously signed up to the Greenzine mailing list and we hope that you look forward to receiving our Greenzine. We hope that you're enjoying the sunshine wherever you are ...

I decided to have a go in the kitchen with the encouragement of Carolyn (not that I need it). The result is a steamed pudding. I'll leave you to guess what sort it is. Needless to say the ingredients pushes the calories per ounce meter up the chart, you would need you to do 50 trips up Jarn Mound to burn it off per portion! It didn't take long to make with the help of a pressure cooker (I don't trust those things! ever since I saw one in my childhood memory with these welded metal clamps on, to keep what seemed like the pressure at 10 tons per square inch, with a jet of super heated steam shooting out of the valve and taking the paint off the wall). Anyway, the end product was edible and lasted me (Carolyn resisted a second helping, more for me!) a few days but I don't think it would travel well to a GG Coffee Break.  -Kevin

A new recruit for Green Gym? He will probably be old enough to come on his own by the time Green Gym restarts! -Eleanor

Adrian has sent over some photos showing views of the bluebells in the woods at Cothill and another showing the Fen itself after the first cut of the rush this year.

Sally arranged another virtual Saturday morning tea break for the Green Gym, at 11am when we would normally be halfway through our work session! Another good attendance as the photo below illustrates. We aim to hold another in two weeks on the 6th June.

Hello All, Whilst out and about yesterday I came across these dragonflies – Broad bodied chasers, male (blue) and female. There were quite a few of them around Abbey Fishponds. Best wishes, Barbara

Housework 5 This may possibly be my last contribution about housework to the GG blog.  The reason is that I am spending so much time doing it and writing my new book on the subject that I have time for little else. Two recent purchases have made a huge difference. The first is something I mentioned in my last contribution, namely the wonderful Dyson cordless hoover. I no longer feel the dread of getting my ankles entangled with cables and do not need to tie myself to the banister rail when doing the stairs any more. The new machine – we call her ‘Donna’ because we ‘donna know what we’d do without her’ has rapidly become a much loved member of the family so much so that we are contemplating taking out formal adoption papers. The other purchase to which I alluded above was a pair of large size marigold gloves. Earlier I was using other pairs that were around the house but they were all medium or even small size. The trouble with them was that, while I could put the...

Sally has made us aware of the Wildlife Trust's annual 30 Days Wild challenge that may appeal to our members. The details follow if you would like to take part, with a link to the website here: https://action.wildlifetrusts.org/page/57739/petition/1 This June, join thousands of people taking part in our annual nature challenge, 30 Days Wild! We want you to do one wild thing a day throughout the whole month: for your health, wellbeing and for the planet. That’s 30 simple, fun and exciting Random Acts of Wildness. You’ll get a free, downloadable pack of goodies to help you plan your wild month, plus lots of ideas to inspire you to stay wild all throughout June (and beyond!). For extra ‘bonus’ items, keep an eye on your emails for additional, fun activities, from instructions for baking hedgehog cupcakes to a beginner’s guide to wildlife photography. To get involved, just tell us who’s taking part. If you are a childminder and want to take part with your children - the...

Hello everyone, Hope everyone is safe and well.  Thought it was about time to give you a robin update, 5 beautiful babies hatched and have already fledged, I thought they were a bit enthusiastic! I have not set eyes on any of them since they left the shed apart for the poor little one that didn't make the first night out in the big world. I opened the shed one morning and was rather startled to see 2 little robins in front of me. By the time I had popped back indoors to get my camera they had disappeared. I assumed they had flown off because I couldn't see them and I'd left the door open. When I went to put my bike away after work I spotted them in the bottom of a bucket which was standing in the shed. I led it on the side and one rapidly left, the other is the one in the photo and that one stayed around for several more days but wasn't very active. I didn't see it leave but it has disappeared. I told you about the knitting craze last time so pho...

Today we held our first virtual Saturday morning coffee break via Zoom! A total of fourteen members participated at 11am, including Victor out in Madrid with cameo appearances from his children.  It was great to catch up while we are unable to hold our usual Green Gym work parties and we plan to make this a more regular occurrence. The next one has been scheduled for 23rd May! See you there? -Andrew

Eleanor has been to visit our wildflower patch at Southern Town Park and it appears to be coming on nicely!

I returned home last week after we completed our project on the ship, rather quickly due to the almost perfect weather conditions. Unfortunately my return coincided with the deteriorating weather and heavy rain!  Now I am waiting to see when I might get sent away next, which is most likely to be towards the end of the month, providing that I avoid the current round of redundancies that is happening. On a happier note, myself and Joanna unleashed our music upon the world on Friday (via Spotify, Apple music, Amazon etc) and got played on BBC Radio 6 Music last night! Being broadcast on national radio was a distant dream when we first discussed our eccentric musical project, but somehow it happened.  You can catch up with the show - Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone, on BBC Sounds for the next month via this link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hvxn Our track (Vanishing Faces - Mushroom Song) starts at around the 18 minute mark. Happy Listening! -Andrew