We spent a sunny Wednesday evening helping out at the Marston Community Allotment. We weeded bindweed and nettles from a no-dig bed (sssshhh, don't tell - we had to dig a little bit to get the epic roots out), watered all the planted-up beds, and shovelled and barrowed compost to top up one bed and fill a raised bed.

Speedy work from all involved!

On Saturday we spruced up the garden at Littlemore Village Hall so that it's ready for them to host outdoor events through the spring and summer months.

We planted trees, pruned hazel, weeded flower beds, watered the plants, and cleaned the outdoor furniture. We were rewarded with sunshine and an abundance of tea and cake. Fun in the sun.

This evening we returned to Boundry Brook Nature Reserve to do some woodland clearing.

After admiring the new mural outside the reserve we headed in to be greeted by the lovely Helen. Our tasks this evening involved clearing up silver birch logs from some recent tree felling, creating brush piles with smaller branches and generally doing a bit if a spruce and tidy of a couple of clearings.

It was a gorgeous evening and we set to work, rescuing earwigs and snails as we worked and enjoying the glowing evening light.

After an hour and a bit if steady work we had assembled a good stack of silver birch logs, debated whether we'd be any good a caber tossing and created a MASSIVE brush pile, slightly trapping John and Fred as a result!

After checking on the path to the bird-hide which we helped to create last year, we headed off to do our various different forms of exercise; the goodgymers had a riverside run and Helen was due at a Morris Dancing session. GLORIOUS!

With the clock change to BST on the horizon we made an early start to get as much light as possible for our Wednesday task at Makespace.

We had a task list to try and get through, and did really well on it - many hands can work magic in a short time.

We hefted pallets, weeded raspberry canes, shovelled leaf mould, cleared the compost area of weeds and rubbish, watered thirsty plants, and started sanding down the picnic benches. As a lovely post-task bonus we had a twilight run over Port Meadow (where the bats were dancing around) and along the canal.

Welcome to GoodGym Joe!

We usually take the opportunity of the darker winter months to gradually work our way around the food bank giving it a thorough clean. We haven't been able to fit in with the food bank schedule for a couple of months, but with ITV due to film there tomorrow, tonight the diary was cleared for us to do an emergency clean.

We swept, we mopped, we wiped, we dusted. We sorted expired food, we threw out an unmentionable amount of black bananas, we even scraped food off the walls. Within an hour the whole place was looking much more camera ready.

Welcome to GoodGym James!