dirtieswebspinner, Author at Dirty Weekenders

19th October 2015

Aberlady Bay – 11/10/15

This Sunday we went to Aberlady, which is absolutely stunning, to clear out the invasive sea buckthorn from the dunes.

We were all a little worried when we saw the amount of sea buckthorn around where we had parked, but the area we had to clear had a more manageable amount of sea buckthorn. Once we got over there, we split up into the clearers and the “pyromaniacs,” who managed the bonfire we were burning the sea buckthorn in. The sea buckthorn made some interesting green smoke which made us all wonder about pollution from it.

Lunch was interesting in the sand, so many of us had crunchy sandwiches! Finding a good stick to toast marshmallows without burning yourself could be difficult, particularly if you had a peanut butter, jam, and marshmallow birthday sandwich to toast!

Some of us went swimming afterwards, and I’m still a bit shocked that stripping down to your underwear on a public beach is legal here! It was extremely cold, so we all ran back to the bonfire barefoot and stood in front of the fire in our underwear for about an hour. It was said to be an odd look to come over the dunes and see about ten people in front of the fire in their underwear!

When we finally dried off, we cut down a few more sea buckthorns and burnt them before playing a few games, Chain Tag and Ratchet Screwdriver. Afterwards, we split up for the ride home and went for drinks at the Auld Hoose, always fun!

12169368_901163789932177_658536793_o — Team Dirties

Thank you guys for a wonderful birthday!

Pics and prose by Lizzie Rhoades

Bonus material (by Cameron ‘Prez’ Fox-Clarke)

14th October 2015

Hermitage of Braid, 27/9/2015

A few weeks ago Dirties ventured out to the far away land of Hermitage of Braid, a magical place of babbling brooks and green, sun-dappled meadows and DOGS! Upon meeting at the Pleasance there was already a DOG (named Alva) there to greet us, as well as a number of eager Dirties ready for a day of meadow-raking. The DOG was really what caught my eye though

We arrived at the hermitage a bit early and were introduced by Rose to a wonderful game known as “Elephant, Palm Tree, Monkey, James Bond, Toaster…” The name actually goes on forever. There were a lot of ridiculous faces and people getting very confused at somebody yelling “toaster” at them. I frequently got distracted by the many DOGS walking past and abandoned the game to go and chase them.

When the ranger arrived we headed off to the wildflower meadow we’d be raking, a project we’ve been doing for a few years now. While collecting tools a very smiley collie DOG came and jumped on me which made me very happy. The aim of the project is to get rid of all of the grass that could rot down and provide nutrients, so that the wild flowers, which prefer poor soil, have a chance to grow. Everyone started in a line at the top of the hill and raked the grass down, with some people removing the huge piles of it. This often involved Morna and a giant tarpaulin running at you at high speed.

While this was going on, I took on the very difficult job of entertaining the DOG. We played fetch and wrestled a bit and had many games of tug of war, most of which Alva won. I was completely knackered by lunch but I powered through for the DOG’s sake.

Break from DOG babysitting for lunch, lots of lovely sandwiches and cheese and odd combinations of spreads. Quite a lot of us spent quite a long time dozing in the sun, it was such a lovely day. Afterwards it was back to raking, going over the whole field for a second time to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. I spent most of my time having a nap with the DOG.

We finished pretty early and headed to the pub for a well earned pint. I got to go in the car with the DOG. The DOG fell asleep on my lap! It was the best.

DOG

Love Becky x

Dog Count: 12

Photos by Matt 🙂

8th October 2015

Roslin Glen 4/10/15

Heya,

I was instructed to do a blog post, so here you go:

Roslin Glen, the first time I escaped Edinburgh to do a dirty. Walking through a graveyard to get there was ominous but no one lost any body parts to the slashers – fearsome sounding tools for clearing undergrowth. We had two kinds of slasher, a short and heavy medieval weapon and a spatula for tall people.

Our group was meant to perform maintenance on a patch of trees that I heard the dirties had planted a few years ago, while others handled another patch and planted daffodil bulbs. I managed to grab a heavy slasher, but we were too quick at our work and by the time I’d cleared around three tree cylinders it seemed like the rest were neatly sorted and weeded.

Soon enough Alan (our keeper) had found us some more work doing the same thing to what was going to be a hedge. This kept us happy until lunch, sometimes chatting to each other, sometimes concentrating intensely on shredding weeds. There was a bread crisis at lunch so I had something more like an enormous canape than a sandwich, but it was tasty enough and later there was a free-for-all hunk of cheese. Looking at the block that was left I thought I could get away with a pretty huge slice, but someone pointed it out and whenever I saw that person during the rest of the day I felt guilty about my cheesy gluttony.

During lunch a wee boy set off a rocket and Frenchmen juggled hammers. Afterwards we lined up and did a scan of a patch of land for tree cylinders that hadn’t been tended. If there had been any missing people in that patch, we would have found them. That search led me to find my excellent stick, which I was very, very pleased with.

After some more hedge tending, I was shown what poohsticks was and supplied with a dud stick! The dirties may be lovely people but they are viciously competitive when it comes to that game. I’m sure Morna was using a non-regulation stick. After the day was done we marched back to the bus station, and the cyclists beat us again. After we’d packed the tools it was off to the Hoose, then beer, pie, natter, home. Another cracking Sunday of being outdoors, meeting new people and smashing plants. Lush.

Written by Rudi, Photos by John 🙂