Volunteering at the River Park

It was, by mid-morning anyway, a rather warm hazy day. The water on the river barely rippled and we could see clearly over to Liverpool with the huge Anglican Cathedral taking centre stage.

There were surprisingly few people about on such a clement morning and I asked Andy the ranger, how it had been going. I remembered many more visitors when I’d come running here. He said that today had been the quietest in a long time. Maybe, he added, it was because all the shops had opened up.

Never mind being a nation of shop keepers, we seem to be a nation of consumers. You’d think the country had been living in an abject state of near-naked deprivation given the queues outside Primark (other non-essential retailers are available) on Monday.

But I like this place when it’s quiet. It’s more peaceful, and you can hear the twittering of the birds and the occasional buzzing of bees. And it was so nice to see again, some of my volunteering buddies. Not as many as normal, as we were limited to six in a group, but I hadn’t seen most of them in over a year.

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Today, I did a bit of drainpipe clearing. These were semi-circular pipes, dug into the steeply sloping paths, with grids on them to catch some of the water that rolled down on very rainy days. They were full of soil and small stones, and the odd worm or spider. Surprisingly satisfying work trowelling it all out. And it was good fun to catch up with Linda, one of the other volunteers.

Granted the catch up didn’t take long considering neither of us had done a huge amount in the last year. Her: Zumba in the kitchen and going on local walks. Me: running. But, we were able to commiserate with each other about how badly her beloved Wycombe Wanderers and my hometown team Coventry City were both doing in the Championship.

It was a really enjoyable morning and although I had planned on getting my mileage in by running there, and then coming back by a circuitous route. I didn’t factor in how tired I’d be from all that digging, even though it didn’t feel hard at the time. So there were no diversions, but it was all very much worth it.