I Gave Blood

I have to say I haven't done so for years, having got out of the habit and no longer being sent a reminder but finally I managed to co-ordinate some free time with the Blood Transfusion service running one of their regular donations sessions at the Meridian Centre and went along to give blood. When I worked at Amex it was easy - they turned up a couple of times a year - boards were placed in reception areas letting you know they were coming and you signed up.

It's a relatively painless (no honestly) process - requires about an hour of your time and obviously many people wouldn't survive without transfusions. They take slightly less than a pint - not a whole armful as Tony Hancock's famous Blood Donor Sketch goes and it's not just the blood that gets used.

If you can donate then do. You can find your nearest blood donation session from www.blood.co.uk
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Off Road In The Mud

A slightly different day today as I went off-road driving for the first time. I was phoned up at short notice earlier in the week, someone had dropped out of the course. It’s part of my work as a volunteer ranger and will mean that I can drive the land rovers when out on tasks.

It did mean an early start, as the off road centre was in Kent but I linked up with another volunteer who lived just up the road in Lewes. Starting early meant we were ahead of the traffic and got there in good time. In fact such good time that having found the place, we were all set to go and get a coffee somewhere - although in the depths of Kent's orchards there weren't going to be too many Starbucks around. However, one of the staff turned up and let us in to the centre to wait in the warmth as it wasn't the warmest of days.

Well, centre sounds slightly glamorous it was a large warehouse with the workshop underneath where there was much hammering and welding going on and an upper level with the classroom, toilets, a small kitchen and offices. This was a 4-wheel driving course, would did you expect. We had to wait while the coffee machine heated up and there was a log burning stove, which once it got going, warmed the place up, along with supplies of coffee, chocolate or whatever combination you chose from the machine.

The rain from the previous few days made the 4x4 course extremely muddy! Firstly, we talked through the mechanics of 4-wheel driving - diffs, gears and learning even simple things, such as the fact that the engine drives the wheel with the least resistance - that's why they spin - on ice, mud or in the wet. Then it was out to put it into practice, in a fairly battered but working Range Rover. There were only three of us on the course which gave plenty of opportunity for driving practice, taking it turns to drive round the course and get used to the gears and the fact that even without your foot on the accelerator the engine still drives the vehicle forward - even on a slope.

Back into the classroom for more about safety, stopping and starting on a slope and the importance of momentum. Lunch was followed up with more hands-on practice this time in the mud and a variety of hills, slopes, mud, ruts and ditches, all the time avoiding the trees, which got pretty close as the range rover lurched from side to side, in and out of the trees, along the ruts and over the bumps. I only touched one small tree! It’s amazing how steep a gradient these vehicles will go up ... and down and the temptation to keep your foot on the brake, as you head down what feels like a ridiculously steep slope - results in a sharp reprimand of "Foot OFF the brake!". This is what they were made for – not driving to and from the nearest supermarket.

All in all a great day out but you're safe for the moment as I won't be allowed out on the road until I've completed the on-road and defensive driving part of the course.

What a great week!

Not only did the sun come out and it's been warm but I got some time to enjoy it too. Well, you've got to get the work life balance right haven't you and having spent much of last weekend working, I decided to make the most of the fine weather and spend less time indoors.

Not only did I manage to cycle into town twice - exercise and sunshine, although the wind was still cold, so not quite as warm as it seemed, but I got to sit in the sunshine and enjoy a coffee at the Meeting Place one day and catch-up with a friend for lunch later in the week.

All change by Thursday. I spent the day up at Kingston dewpond near Lewes on a grey day with a particularly cold wind whipping across the Downs. As part of the South Down volunteer rangers, we were finishing the fencing round the pond and installing a gate. It was a joint effort between the Central and Eastern groups - although only two of us had turned up from Central this time, there are usually half a dozen. It took us about an hour to get the truck loaded up with posts, rails, gates etc. The rest of the team were waiting for us at the bottom of the hill by the time we got there.

It's incredibly hard work digging post holes, especially down into the chalk and flint. It took four of us the whole day to dig the holes for four posts round the gate, put in the bolts and rail. There were a variety of tools to break up the flint and extract the earth from the hole but most of it down to good old manual labour.

Much to Robin's delight - we managed to complete all the fencing and install the gate just in time. We'd been watching a large, ominous cloud getting gradually nearer and nearer. The rain started and the hail began just as we finished tightening the last bolts and hurried to get all the tools loaded up.

It made a change from sitting in-front of the laptop all day but I certainly ached afterwards.

A Day Out - Coppicing

This is the second week in a row that I've been out volunteering on a Thursday. Much colder today than last week but still sunny. We were working in the same area in a small wood at the base of Ditchling Beacon - coppicing.

It's an area that has been left for a long time as can be seen from the four or five large trunks that have grown up from a single stock. The trees are mainly ash and hazel with a few younger hawthorn trees growing up. Anything that could be cut down with a bow saw or loppers was cleared with the large trees being left for the chainsaw later or just left as they were - especially the larger oaks.

Despite being in a wooded area - we still got a good bonfire going to clear all the unusable wood. Anything usable was turned into stakes or binders for hedging and the large logs cut up for firewood. Even if you're only chopping down a tree that's 4-5 inches across there's a lot of height and branches above you that need to be cut up and cleared. The crashing of trees as they were felled - not many yells of 'Timber!' as we were mainly working several metres away from each other. There were seven of us in total and it's very satisfying at the end of the day to look at the area that's been cleared and see what a difference has been made.

Areas like this were coppiced regularly and harvested every few years or sometimes decades later. We tend to think on a much shorter time scales these days. No instant results when you’re planting for planks of wood. Nature won't be hurried - at least not when it comes to growing trees. Knowing that the tree you plant one year wouldn't be harvested until twenty-five or thirty years later.

Volunteering in your Community

I've just become a signed up member of the South Downs Volunteer Rangers, having just spent my 'taster' day out on the Downs. I knew I'd enjoy it, I've been volunteering off and on for a while and more recently with the Sussex Wildlife Trust at Lewes.

It was the best fun I've had in ages. A full-on day, blooming hard work and I arrived back home very tired, covered in scratches and smelling of smoke but it's that good physical exhaustion, not the mental exhaustion you get from spending all day in front of the computer and certainly a great stress-reliever. Fresh air, loads of exercise and a sense of a job well done.

The South Downs Joint Committee is one of several groups that have working parties going out three days a week and also at the weekends. Most companies are willing and able to get more involved in the community, through various Business in the Community schemes.

Why not see if your company is willing to get it's employees involved. Arrange a team day, out of the office, get involved in your community. If you want to do something energetic, then go scrub-bashing on the Downs.

You'll ache but you'll feel a whole lot better for it.

Scrub-bashing and Duloe

It wasn't intended to be a working weekend but it turned out to be one. Unless that was Rhiannon's cunning plan ... luring us down there with talk of a relaxing weekend by the sea, walks along the coast path and barbeques in the garden.

Being Cornwall, the work she'd organised in the orchard, hadn't been done. They were probably aiming to do it sometime in the next month, Cornish time being somewhat like 'manyana' in Spain, so on Saturday morning we set to with loppers, strimmer (that's why it was in the car!), secateurs and electric saw, to clear the boundary ready for the surveyor on Monday morning.

Hacking our way through buddleia, brambles and nettles, we made a pretty good job of it by the end of the day, inspite of the odd shower. My arms looked as if I'd been dragged through rather a large hedge backwards, which in effect I had. At least the jeans prevented my legs from coming to too much damage. Hard work but good fun. There's nothing like a bit of good old physical exercise to make you feel like you deserve a glass of chilled wine at the end of the day.

The steps down into the orchard were well covered with clippings deposited by the neighbours and as it hadn't been cleared all summer, the brambles were pretty rampant. My clearing efforts were interrupted at frequent intervals by blackberry picking. They were far too large, juicy and numerous to be ignored.

I was also left in charge of the two dogs, who had already disappeared off to explore on a couple of occasions since we arrived but had at least returned. After keeping them shut in while Rhiannon and Karen went off to gather supplies, I managed to let them out and keep them in the garden without them disappearing off down the coast path towards Land's End!

On Sunday, we visited Looe, along with a few hundred other holiday makers and after a drink in the pub where we caught up on Big Brother, the TV being one of the things that just wasn't going to fit into the car, had a pasty on the seafront followed by a Cornish ice-cream.

Away from the crowds, a very different experience up at Duloe Stone circle. A small bronze age stone circle of quartz granite set at the edge of a field. The circle was rediscovered in 1801 and bisected by a hedge until it this was removed and the stones placed upright.

These ancient sites are associated with rituals or astronomical observations and although I'm not sensitive to it, there's an energy to be found within these circles or from the stones themselves. It certainly felt a warm, calm and comfortable place to be.

It's not far from a 13th Century church which has an interesting history in itself, dedicated to St Cuby - a 6th Century celtic bishop, with an ancient pre-christian font. Births, deaths, lives lived - condensed into names, dates and ages on blocks of slate and granite.

Your Countryside Needs You!

I was out yesterday volunteering with the local wildlife trust helping to clear a footpath, which had become overgrown. It's part of a local nature reserve that I started helping out on at the beginning of the year. It covers a pretty large area and there were only seven of us out working yesterday.

Much of the English countryside has been farmed for many years and so it isn't necessarily in it's natural state. Grazing of sheep, cattle and ponies has an impact on the variety of plants and animals that inhabit a particular area. Grazing here on the South Downs has resulted in the chalkland fauna and flora that exists today, much of which is rare and would disappear if it wasn't for the grazing and the work of volunteers keeping the scrub down.

Most local councils and wildlife trusts do not have the funding and resources to manage the land, so they rely on the work of volunteers. There is always far too much work to be done and not enough volunteers to do it.

If you'd like to get involved, it only takes up one day a month and most working parties don't work over the summer. You'll get out into the fresh air for a few hours. Work hard, there are always a variety of tasks for different physical strength and abilities. It's very rewarding even if you only feel your scratching the surface of what needs doing. Most days start at 10.00am and finish around 3.30pm although you don't have to stay all day.

If you work for a company - why not organise a day out for your team. Most companies these days get involved in the community as part of Corporate Social Responsibility so why not do something worthwhile and make a difference to your local countryside.

• Local Wildlife Trust Volunteering.
• British Trust for Conservation Volunteers.
• RSPB Volunteers

OK ... I'm sorry this is very UK centric but I hope that anyone in Europe or further afield can find something similar in their area. I found this for the US - National Wildlife Federation

If you know of any other useful links feel free to add a comment to this thread.