Pace training (Wytham day 2)

Today I had another day of survey. It was a little different because Rob and Dawn joined us, and while they did used to work with Keith (many moons ago) neither had made it to Wytham. It was kind of fun to see other people’s responses to the work. We were laying odds on how serious Rob had been when he said he expected Keith would be taking him to pub for lunch (even though I’d assured him of the fallacy of this remark), but both of them stuck at it, and we had some hellish plots to do. 

At the first plot, Rob said he’d watch, but Keith had other ideas, even after Rob pointed out that that was what senior management did. The first one was through a thorn, with some serious bramble patch the other side of it. The second was full of nettles. Dawn and I were sent ahead to find and set up the next plot, at which task we failed three times in a row. Nigel (that’s the site manager, not running Nigel) explained that this is because Keith has a Sixth Sense for plot markers (“I see metal markers under the ground…” – we understand it’s the sequel. Bruce Willis will be playing Keith – he’s growing the beard). On all occasions they were present, and Keith found them (oh, except once when Rob found it). 

After lunch, Keith had an Alan Sugar moment, and decided for the sake of fairness, that he’d mix the teams up a little. Rob and I were dispatched to the next plot. It was the worst plot I have ever done. Admittedly the post WAS there. There was a big bush between the post and the plot – it had elder, hazel and a lot of bramble all the way through it. It was not only impenetrable; it was also not possible to see through, or to take a bearing through. Rob is a lot more senior than what I am, although I’ve known him for a long time, and known that him and Keith have a lot of banter, based on their passed history together. So I took my compass bearing, pointed to the middle of the bush, and Rob started walking at about 90 degrees in a different direction. “No, Rob, really, it’s this way”. I said. “I’m just going round” he said. “OK, but don’t take the tape measure. I can pass it through to you,” I said. “No”, he said, “this will be fine”. “You’re not listening in a way only senior management can,” I told him. He came back and gave me the tape.

I thought about all those dramas (usually Casualty) where two people get hived off from the rest of the clan and have some ordeal together (Dawn later disputed that my scenario had been life-threatening, but that’s because she didn’t see Rob’s face when he was standing in the middle of the bramble failing to find the marker). Anyway, you know how they always end up being best friends, and you think “that would never happen!” – Well, turns out, you’re right, it wouldn’t. Rob just moaned a lot about how pointless it was even looking for the marker, and how it was obvious that the only thing in that plot was going to be bramble. Anyway, I eventually ran the tape out to the other end of the plot, and we found the marker, where it was outside of the bramble. I say, “we found it” because I’m feeling very generous. It somehow lacked the sense of brilliant achievement it had yesterday with Keith. 

Still, they valiantly stuck it out, right up to the last plot (at which point there was a surplus number of surveyors, so they departed). The last plot was up a hill (again) and Keith worked out how many paces he thought it would be (140) so I paced it out. I was contemplating how much easier counting was when you weren’t swimming at the same time, when I got the giggles, because I suddenly wondered if I could count it as “pace training”. But Sally probably won’t fall for that. Rob did question a lot of things, wanting to know why the plots were offset, why it was that we didn’t use lasers to mark the plots, why there weren’t posts at all the corners, why we didn’t GPS the locations of the corners, and why on earth we record the coordinates of the seedlings, if there are not four leading trees (which is more often than you might think). It’s very dangerous, letting senior management see your work. I got the impression that he didn’t think I was curious and probing enough, rather than that I’d been asking those questions for 10 years, and didn’t think I was going to change Keith’s methodology at this juncture.

Anyway, Rob was exceedingly scathing about the blog, and asked if anyone actually read it. So anyone who knows which Rob I’m talking about, I’m urging you to drop casually into conversation what a great blog this is. Lie if you have to.