On a rainy stormy night, I was grateful for an indoor task! The Team at Common Thread opened their doors and we busied ourselves sorting through the latest clothes donations in readiness for the next clothes swap.

There were some true gems and of course we couldn't help but sporting the latest autumn/winter 25-26 trends! You saw them here first!

Come and pick yourself a bargain at the clothes swap on Saturday 4 October (1-4pm, Union street)!

Tonight we ran up and down the River Don to inspect the fish passes on the weirs for the DCRT. We managed to visit 3 fish passes at three sites: Lady's Bridge Weir, Walk Mill Weir, and Burton Weir. Happily, all of the passes were clear and freely flowing. At Burton Weir we saw a great many birds wading and fishing in the overflowing water. There were guls with their chicks (which are now hard to tell apart from the adults), ducks, and even a heron! Following this avian observation session we headed back to the Showroom to stretch off.

It is the fruity season! after picking 200 kilos of Worcester Pearmain apples with the lovely folks at Abundance on Sunday, we joined forces with Abundance again and moved on to a pear tree which was cropping one month earlier than usual!

We first picked the windfalls before grabbing the pickers to collect the fruit higher up the tree, a "fruitstrating" task as the pears were eluding our efforts.

But resistance is "fruitile" and we managed to save a total of 12kg, with a crate of the best being donated to Broomhall community centre who host a community meal every Wednesday.

A "pearfect" way to use the produce!

Goodgymmers Annie, Ines, Tim and Celine met up with national cycke network champions Sustrans Craig, Gerry, William and John to attack super hot grot spot at the corner of maltreated Maltravers road and Cricket Inn.

We bagged up an incredible amount of rubbish in no time at all - many hands holding litterpickers make light work!

Rachel, Annie and I joined 11 members of the Abundance project to help harvest 4 apple trees from a public orchard near the Millennium gallery so that they can be distributed to good causes and saved from waste.

We picked apples and separated the best (“first”) which are given to local community group from the virtually good (“second”) which are virtually perfect and third which are not donated but saved by some volunteers for cooking. Volunteers also get to take seconds home!

It was a superb turnout of volunteers on a gorgeous day. Many hands make light work and together we picked 151kg of first, 43kg of seconds and 13kg of 3rd - over 200kg in under 2 hours is an incredible harvest!