Tonight we had a septet of GoodGymers shifting a whole lotta woodchip for the Blenheim Arpley Residents Association. They've done an awesome job starting a community garden and getting loads of trees planted and asked us for a hand with spreading woodchip around the new trees.

Toilet humour

It was a short run, after a little intro question about fave toilets. Some very amusing stories and some good choices!

When we arrived at the task there were two huge piles of woodchip, some wheelbarrows (in various states of repair...), shovels and a few different areas for us to spread the woodchip to; tyres, shrub beds and 3 patches of trees.

We split up and managed to complete most of the job!

It was great to have Mariah at her first session 🥳 and shout out to everyone else for risking the chance of rain to smash out another task 👍

Another session at the amazing water tower base and we're (sadly?) gradually getting to a point where our work will be done on this 18+ month project!

We had a top team of excavators in the form of Catherine, Kelsey, Hannah, James, me, John and new-to-the-crew Livia! 🥳

We were digging the remaining soil out of the old pipes, removing soil and digging down until we (hopefully) reached concrete, and pulling out weeds and dead tree roots.

We ended up with a decent-sized pile of soil, a big collection of dead vegetation, a little more knowledge, and even some smiles for the photo 📸

Nice one, team! 💪

Today Crystal Palace junior park run use the outdoor athletic track for the very first time as the usual 2.2km concert bowl course and the backup courses were not available, the children absolutely loved it.

Poor Millie has broken her toe - so our helpful Linda nipped over to get the toolshed key and we swapped the Cator Park task for one at Alexandra Rec. We started the meetup with a quick chat about 'favourite smells' - inspired by petrichor smell of the earth when the rain starts. Favourites in the group were quite specific and ranged from the New Zealand bush, to painting memories, and nail varnish! We headed off doing just a little loop, and dodging raindrops, and met Merrin and Linda at the park, where we set about mulching the new hedgerow trees that had been weeded just a few weeks back but now needed protecting from the recent hot dry weather. The little bits of rain the last couple of days made it the perfect time to wheelbarrow mulch over to the trees and hold some of that moisture in, to give them a fighting chance this summer. We got quite a few barrows ferried over and added to the rows of trees in between chats about holidays, the weather (of course) and even ChatGPT! Thanks all and see you again soon - another great job :)

Today, I was marshall #6 on the course around the concert bowl 2.2km. We had a good turn out despite the threat of rain.

We had a NEW TASK tonight helping Mary and Rachel from Barnmead Road Allotments clear a big patch of brambles so that the area can be turned into a community garden. Many hands and some decent tools made light work and we managed to clear a good chunk of the area in just 45 minutes (see photos). After working up a sweat, we were treated to some delicious fruit (and spare strawberry plants!) by our lovely hosts while Catherine made friends with an allotment cat .

Great work team!