It's bin a while since we last visited our friends at Slough Refugee Support but as always, it was lovely to see Keriann.

Our task this evening was to give the entrance area a big tidy up by removing moss, cutting back hedges, pruning rose bushes, pulling out weeds and planting pansies.

We met at Salt hill activity centre at 6.30pm and took a nice 1 km walk around the park to the task venue where Keriann was ready and waiting for us. With a quick task overview we were ready to get going.

It was great to have Hamid back on his second task with us. Hamid is so speedy with the shears that we likened him to a hamster.....beavering away at the hedge, we literally couldn't clear the ground quick enough.

Jean was all over the rose bushes and even found the one we donated a while back for the memory garden. Mehdi helped Jean cut back our rose bush to it could grow and then cut back the hedge that was a thorn in the side of the rose bush as it was stopping the light from getting to the plants. They definitely rose to the occasion

Peter was on a number of duties today as he always is. Pruning the other rose bush, turning over the soil, sweeping, collecting and disposing the debris. Peter even very kindly agreed to give the children's garden picnic bench a makeover. We look forward to seeing the end result soon.

Jen and Kam didn't moss around as they systematically scrapped the floor and disposed of it.

Pam and Abdulaziz concentrated on the main entrance walkway, clearing the weeds and mainly tidying up after Hamid.

Agnija arrived in time to clear the remaining patch in the memory garden.

Following all health and safety protocols we even had a few trashy moments..

All in all, with a lot of members tonight, we cleared the area in a really good time.

Keriann advised us of the AGM for Slough Refugee Support and invited us all to come along. I did a presentation last year at this AGM and really enjoyed meeting all those involved in such a valuable service in Slough. The AGM will be on Friday 25th August 10am - 12pm at 29 Church Street (Slough CVS meeting room). Everyone is welcome.

Mehdi, who I first met at Slough Refugee Support English class said at the end

SRS is like my family. They have supported me since I arrived here 7 months ago.

And tonight, Mehdi helped his SRS family with his GoodGym family.

Great effort all round from the team on donating winter clothes for refugee families.

We were supporting local refugees this winter and donated items of clothing for them. There are 600 refugees in Slough who we wanted to make sure are warm this winter.

As Autumn starts and the days start to get darker sooner, we realised this might be our last evening task with Slough Refugee Support.... but that just means we will aim to log some day thyme garden tasks instead! Where there's a will there's a way!

Upon arrival into the park we started off with the warm up and chat over weekend shinanigans before we headed to the bottom of the hill for some sprints.

After a few ups and downs we headed over to the Slough Refugee Support centre on the other side of the park.

Gazeb-it or not

The first task Keriann wanted us to do was to take down Gary The Gazebo! Now Gary was a bit tricky! We looked him up and down, tried to work out the top from the bottom and the left from the right.. finally with a bit of help from an online source we took Gary out in one swift move!

No leaf left behind

Whilst the Gary operation was taking place by Sut, Sandy, Lauren and I, Jean and Pam had swept up all the fallen autumn leaves!

A job well done team Slough!

Next week we are with a new task owner helping them with their garden space.

This evening we were back helping The Slough Refugee Support with a gardening task.

We met at 6:30pm in Salt Hill Park for the task brief and warm up. As the task venue was also in the park we decided on hill sprints as our 'run to' session! I say we, I mean me!

With the sun shining down on us there was only one way to do… UP! and boy was there some competitive sprinting going on!

It was great to have Eoin join us today on his first Slough task!

With the hill sprints completed we headed to the other end of the park to the task location.

On arrival Keriann was there with tools at the ready to give the garden a makeover. With a good sized group tonight we divided into two teams to cover the side garden and back garden.

Dr was straight away on the lawn mower - he fought the lawn but the lawn won, though to be fair, Savi did a great job!

Sandy took her little patches and weeded them into nice little spikey piles - she did her good weed for the day.

Jean was loving being in the rose bushes, she cut back the ones that were turning ‘wild’, who knew roses turned wild? But these are the types of things that Jean always knows about - just one of rose things

Lauren and Eoin were busy sweeping, weeding, working out what were weeds and what were plants - they used a bit of trowel and error to get there in the end.

Simmi didn’t moss around. She was straight into the flower beds de-weeding. Then cutting back the hedges with her newly WD40’d tool - we always have cutting hedge technology!

And finally we had Pam who always can’t herb her enthusiasm on gardening tasks. Pam was helping out here there and every where.

There is never a dill moment with us around and amazingly in just 45 minutes we had given both gardens a lovely makeover!

Giving us enough thyme to do lamppost to lamppost sprints all the way round the park, and finishing off with some leg strengthening exercises.

Next week we are over at Ryvers school. It will be a walking task as we need welly boots and long sleeved clothes on!

Wet wet wet

After last weeks epic disaster of rain rain and more rain we were back with Slough Refugees in Salt Hill Park to help them with their outdoor garden space. This time we were helping to de-weed the front entrance area to help get it ready for a memorial garden for those families they support who have lost loved ones.

This week it was great to have Rosa join us and Abdulaziz come along to his first gardening task. We were thankful for a nicer evening even though the lead up to 6:30 was a replay of last Monday! Wet wet wet…

With our warm up done, we jogged down to the start of the ‘hill’ in Salt Hill Park to do 5 hill sprint reps before jogging over to the Slough Refugee premises.

Roses are red

As we chatted and pulled out all the weeds Keriann asked us if we knew anyone who would support their memorial garden by donating a rose bush! Without hesitation I offered to donate one from the Slough team, and I knew the team would be happy to contribute (as they were!).

As I’m a tad clueless about a bush, a weed, ivy or thyme… I’ve asked for some expert help from Jean to choose the right one!

As we left the Centre to jog back to our start point we got chatting about Brighton marathon (the extremely hot race), Slough half (the extremely wet race) and Jean gave us some wise words

At my age you won’t care what time you run a race in… you are just happy to run

At this point she astounded us by telling us she ran the London Marathon at aged 65 in just under 4 hours and then again at aged 73 in just under 5 hours!

She’s my idol!

Next week we are helping Everyone Active with a carpark litter pick at The Centre.

We had a lovely little task with Slough Refugee Centre this evening. Their back garden space was in need of a sweep, a tidy up and a wipe down of the chairs.

We chairish these tasks

With my legs just about moving today, Helen and Jen were kind enough to walk a lap of the park with me whilst Simmi got her running in.

We got a lovely walk n talk in just as Simmi finished her second lap and then we headed to the Centre.

Keriann, our task owner was there to meet us and give the task brief, which was to tidy up the back yard and clean down the chairs.

Our 3 sweeping beauties quickly got to work. It really didnt take us long as all to get the task done... no sitting on the job tonight... Helen had a roast dinner to make it back home for!

Well done all on a great job.