Angela Parkin was looking muddy and pink in the cheeks after a morning in the rain, swinging a mallet and shovelling red earth. She and 11 others had just spent a weekend building two flights of steps on a footpath through Half Crown Wood near the River Severn in Worcestershire.
So what had Angela and her equally dirty and bedraggled colleagues done to deserve this? She's a respectable 24-year-old chemical engineer from Middlesbrough, not the kind of person you'd expect to end up repaying her debt to society with a community service order or something like that. The answer was that all of them were blameless citizens who had not only chosen to do this but were paying £39 for the privilege.
"I wanted a holiday I could go on by myself, which was social and involved meeting new people, which didn't cost an arm and a leg and took place outdoors in the countryside," said Angela. "The fact that it was helping the community and was good for the environment was a bonus, but it wasn't the main point.
"I wasn't sure what to expect because I hadn't done one before, but it's been very cool, very relaxed, a good balance of blokes and girls. We went to the pub on Friday night and the work was fine, even though I haven't done much practical stuff before. Everyone helped out and mucked in."
Jon Gedling, a 27-year-old surveyor from Oxford, has been on 10 similar holidays with the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV), starting with one building paths and bridges in Canada. "This was good fun, although the weather this morning was pretty dire, and we achieved something at the end of it," he said.
"The most satisfying thing I've done is building a maze in Painswick Gardens in Gloucestershire, designed by a crossword compiler. Part of the attraction is that people who come don't usually know each other. There are all ages and both sexes, but they're not singles holidays - people don't see them like that."
Like Angela, Jon felt the environmental or community benefit was secondary. Anne Burge, a 57-year-old doctor from Malvern, was even more emphatic: "It's a little bit about saving the world, but not much. It's for me, really - to get away on my own, get muddy, and not take responsibility.
"I also like the feeling of being part of an ancient tradition. I'm a bell-ringer, you see, and later this year I'm going to go on weekends doing hedge-laying and dry-stone walling. Today was the first time I'd used a brace and bit since I was a child - both my grandfathers were carpenters."
The group had gathered on Friday night - only one by public transport, to the likely chagrin of BTCV purists - to be met by two leaders: Michael O' Dowd, a retired teacher, and Lynnette Fairclough, a chemist who admits reluctantly that her job is making Unilever's soap powders wash a little bit whiter.
The accommodation was a fairly comfortable house at the Frank Chapman Centre, a remote outdoor complex named after a former education chairman of Smethwick borough council. This was classed "standard" lodging - sometimes it's "simple", which means you bring a sleeping bag and bed down on the floor of a church hall or similar.
The food was provided, but it was down to the participants to cook it: pasta with bolognese followed by apple crumble and custard on Saturday night. Lynnette - trained like Michael in food hygiene, tool safety, first aid and group leadership - pronounced it an excellent weekend: "Good people, everyone gelled, the task got done."
So now the pupils of Windmill First and Middle Schools on the outskirts of Stourport-on-Severn can use the path home through the wood without falling over on the steep bits. The new steps were built with sturdy railway sleepers (recycled, of course).
"It actually costs us more to get it done by volunteers than it would to get it done by contractors," said Lynnette. "But it ticks a lot of boxes for us, such as community inclusion and so on, so that's why we do it."
Where to sign up
The British Trust for Conservation Volunteers
Address: 36 St Mary's Street, Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 0EU.
Tel: 01491 821600.
The BTCV runs more than 400 week-long or weekend holidays a year in the UK and abroad. A week in July at Ranworth Broad in Norfolk costs £55, travelling by boat each day to mow and rake a reed bed in a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Activities include coastal conservation, building bridges or boardwalks, dry-stone walling and fencing, hedge-laying, and improving woodlands and wildlife habitats.
National Trust Working Holidays
Address: Wroxham, Norwich NR12 8DH.
Tel: 08704 292429.
The trust runs 430 volunteer holidays in more than 100 locations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland all year round. Spend a fortnight working as stewards (couples only,£100) at Lindisfarne Castle on Holy Island in Northumberland, and a week working among the reeds and birdlife of Wicken Fen near Cambridge. You could also be clearing woodland, building walls, laying hedges or doing archaeological or botanical surveys in famous locations such as Bodiam Castle, Winkworth Arboretum, or Batemans - Rudyard Kipling's former home in Sussex. Costs range from £29 for a weekend to £65 for a week in the summer, and the perk is a year's free access to NT properties.
Waterway Recovery Group
Address: PO Box 114, Rickmansworth, Herts WD3 1ZY.
Tel: 01923 711114.
A week at the end of July and start of August restoring a spectacular flight of 14 locks on the Monmouth and Brecon Canal , one of Britain's most beautiful waterways. The cost is £35, including food and accommodation. The Waterway Recovery Group organises groups of about 20 volunteers to work on dozens of restoration projects on Britain's canal system, mostly in the summer.
Cathedral Camps
Address: 16 Glebe Avenue, Flitwick, Beds MK45 1HS.
Tel: 01525 716237.
Cathedral Camps organises 22 week-long camps in July and August for groups of 15 to 25 people, usually in their late teens or early 20s, to clean up churches and cathedrals. You could help to restore, paint and polish parts of Canterbury Cathedral (£60 including full board). Accommodation varies from Chapter House floor to comfortable choir school beds. Like many conservation holidays, it can count towards a Duke of Edinburgh Award.
National Trust for Scotland
Address: Wemyss House, 28 Charlotte Square, Edinburgh EH2 4ET.
Tel: 0131-243 9300.
If you don't mind the cold, you could help clear and maintain the battlefield of Culloden in Scotland for a week in April. Organisers Thistle Camps are part of the National Trust for Scotland, which offers dozens of holidays between March and October for around £55 a week.
Earthwatch Europe
Address: 57 Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6HJ.
Tel: 01865 318831.
Spend six days on the yacht Forever Changes helping to monitor threats to the basking shark population in British waters. In May and June, the work will be off Cornwall, switching to the Firth of Clyde and Hebrides in August and September. The trips are organised by the European arm of the US-based Eathwatch Institute, which promotes conservation through research and education, and cost £440 including food.
