second collecting

I wouldn't go as far as to say we had a particularly successful day out on the First of the Season, but for those of you that read our recent piece on ‘ First of the Season ‘ I think you would agree it was certainly great fun and very eventful. Well on the back of that I think deep down poor Martin felt he had to make some sort of effort to redeem himself and repair some of his damaged reputation and deflated ego even. So here he was, at it again trying to organising another collecting trip. No mean feat this time for him, trying to get a word in edgeways between the heckling and ribbing he was getting as well as trying to make himself heard above the raptures of laughter. But typical of Martin he wasn't going to give up. I am not sure whether it was Martin's influencing skills or whether a couple of us off the first trip just felt a little bit of compassion towards him but we eventually gave in and agreed to meet up and give him a redemption opportunity. There were four takers on this occasion, Chris, John, Dave, Myself and of course Martin.

It was Martin's suggestion that we visit one of our old stomping grounds this time. (A definite ‘lets play it safe' move) In actual fact it is the same area we visited on 26 th January 2009 and I wrote a little piece called ‘ Dragon Beats the Credit Crunch ‘ So Martin and I knew what to expect. ( if there is such a thing when you working with nature and the area has had a full growing season ) However the others had not been to this site so Martin made sure he described in finite detail what you could normally expect to see and test if it matched the expectations of the party. Well it appeared to and final arrangements were made.

I think it's worth mentioning at this point that those of us in the society that enjoy going out collecting do so with a specific objective in mind. We do not believe in going out and collecting material for the sake of it. Far better to have something more specific in mind and see if you can find something that loosely fits the bill. There are of course never any guarantees, but at least if you haven't found something you were looking for you will have almost certainly enjoyed the exercise, the views and had a great laugh.

We met up at the right Mc Donald's this time so that was a bonus to start with and all set off after Martin. The plan was to follow him to a lay by just a couple of miles away where we would all park up and head for the hills. For any of you that follow some of our pieces you may have begun to establish, like many of us in the society that Martin's navigational and orientation skills leave quite a lot to be desired. This morning was no exception. Three lay by's later we arrive at the right one, and only then because I recognised that the one we stopped at last time had the preverbial ‘ Greasy Burger Van ‘ parked in it. Martin our intrepid leader is very good though at getting his priorities right. So first things first, he's off like a greyhound to the burger van to order what he will call a hearty breakfast for everyone. Half an hour later and each of us weighing about half stone heavier, we check our kit and head off up the mountain.

I know the climb is going to be a pretty arduous one but I feel it's best to keep that to myself. However not before to long Martin is getting those questions ‘ Are we there yet ? ‘and ‘ How much further is it ? ‘ Martin starts to do his encouraging Dad bit and tells everyone what they want to hear, namely that we haven't got too much further to go, but I can just begin to see some traces of doubt in Martin's eyes as we approach some tricky intersections and his fatal flaws in orientation and navigation are beginning to surface. I say nothing but surprisingly for me, I actually recognise where we are but think it's better sport to leave it all to Martin for now and see how he squirms out of this one. Before it goes too far though I pipe up that I have recognised where we are and in a flash we are back on track and can see our target area ahead to some grateful gasps of ‘ thank ****** for that ‘

The next hour or so is taken up with us foraging around looking at what is on offer so to speak before we split up somewhat to go back and dig and collect what we need. At this point it is predominantly Larch interspersed with some Pine. The time spent just foraging proves to be time well spent, and the digging and collecting doesn't take us that long so eventually we start to form back into the group and head back down the mountain stopping only to pick up some Beech and Ash that a couple of us had spotted on the walk up. The time spent ambling down the mountain we are just chatting and describing what we have in our bags and what we intend doing with them, or just generally discussing Bonsai and sharing some knowledge or problem solving so before we know it we are at the lay by.

Well we have had another great day out. All of us have been able to collect something worth the effort and once again the weather has been in our favour so the views of the countryside have been fantastic.

For Martin, well he has gone some way towards redemption, and can at least have a couple of weeks of peace at the bonsai workshops.
FOR NOW ANYWAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Editors comments:
-. Dexter fans will have noted you never see Martin in any of the pictures.
-.There are a great many bags and not many collected trees pictured.
-. A number of the bags appear to contain bulky, non tree looking items
-. Anyone own a boat?