On Saturday we were out on the river with the Falcon canoers and kayakers for the Paddle UK Big Paddle Clean Up.

The weather forecast looked dodgy, so we stayed relatively close to the club house this time, tackling the Longbridges Nature Reserve, Folly Bridge area, and Aston's Eyot. We persevered through rain showers for a huge haul of the usual cans, bottles and (normal for Oxford) drowned bikes. Special mention to the picnic chair halfway up a tree which we managed to hook down!

It was great to refresh the skills we learnt from the canoers last month, while doing a good deed. Good work paddlers!

Saturday was helping out at University Parks parkrun event #172 with the pre-event course check, set up, and marshaling near the crepe van. 630 runners and walkers completed the 5 km course. There was a rapid dash to Falcon boat club for the canoe litter pick afterwards.

Sunday was spent as marshal and warm up leader at Florence Park Junior parkrun event #220. 128 juniors completed the 2 km course on a sunny June morning.

Mrs J is a keen gardener, but mobility issues have left her unable to keep her garden in as good a state as she would like. We speed-weeded borders, cleared patio weeds, and pruned shrubs, giving the garden as thorough a tidy as we could in an hour an a half.

After an 11th hour cancellation of our planned task (thanks to the task owner getting a wasp sting to the face) we headed to Marston Forest Garden instead.

The warm spring has had grass, goose grass, michaelmas daisies etc springing up and swamping the fruit trees, so we were on a mission to clear some of that and give the trees and shrubs room to breathe. We carefully worked around goji berries, seabuckthorn, plum trees and more, avoiding the Nepalese raspberries and wild strawberries. An hour made a big difference, so a good alternative task for a sunny evening!

Lovely to have a London visitor in the form of Kash.

Well done for reaching 100 Good Deeds Fred - superstar!

What a glorious morning!

Thank you to everyone who cane to the Blenheim jaunt.

We started in the town square and encountered some very mean boy ducks and did some excellent people watching. We them set off around Blenheim Palace park stopping to admire sheep and lambs, avoid some very protective goose parents and their fluffy babies and also to get our breath back at the top of the big hill!

The routes were planned to perfection (yes I'm feeling smug about that!) and we regrouped in the square before having our all important post-run refreshments.

It seems that we even managed to tire out coach Rosie!!

I'll be planning some more social run/walk sessions over the summer. Keep your eyes peeled!

We LOVE a scything session!!

The weather was perfect last night for a meander through the Eyot and a spot of cleaning and clearing. After meeting Charlie and having a reminder of the safest way to carry and use the scythes, we strolled to the area that needed attention. Aston's Eyot has a lot of clearings which often get over grown by nettles. This prevents any other flora and fauna from getting established. After splitting into team-scythe and team-rake we got to work. Accompanied by the sounds of the "bumping" boat races and the sassy announcer (very stereotypical Oxford) we made short work of a large parch of nettles and lopped some low hanging branches for safety and to let more light in. It was a delightful task, full of chat about running, books, bakeries and hearing about adventures to New Zealand and Canada from Becky and Ellie!

Thank you for the report title Joe!