As if we hadn't had enough of litter from the last session, we jumped straight into helping the Berry Maze with their Annual Easter egg hunt/community litter pick combo. Though this time, it was a bit tricker as the Malago river itself had many months of fly tipping building up. Only one way about it, wellies on! Freya and I got slightly damp and at points very stuck, but we did managed to get the bulk of crap out of the river(3 Tvs, 2 trollies, 1 wardrobe, 1 sound system, many many bags of clothes.) Frances, Jason and Rich had found a doorway into another world of fly tipping, mostly doors. 6 doors in fact! They also gave aerial support to us riverfolk with lifting bulky stuff out the other side. At the same time Emma and and Janka were busy clearing out the Berry Maze maze, keeping Barney happy is a very important part of the job, as his jokes get worse the more weeds there are in the maze. between us, the berry maze, and the locals, we managed to make a massive impact on the local environment, and green spaces. Big thanks to everyone who came along,

Bit of a special session this week, as we were joined by a swarm of locals who were concerned and wanted to do something about the fly tipping in the area. Even a local counciller got their gloves on and helped out. On top of some stellar GG litter picking action, we even managed to create a new wildflower bed, with extra thanks to newcomer Elaine who wasn't afraid to pick up a fork get stuck in on the action!

We managed to neatly pack the trash so that it could be collected by the council quicker, then hopped accross the road for another litter session at the Berry maze! Thanks all, see you next month!

Armed with small snips. big snips and panthers (and later a tree popper) one team headed up onto the viaduct. The main task was to remove sycamore but we also got some ash and there was some rogue nettle head removal! We also popped sycamore and the odd cherry while we were up there (👀). Surprisingly breathtaking. A highlight was seeing some ladybirds emerging from hibernation and some robins and chifchaffs (apparently one bird says chiff chaff and it isn’t a call and answer type of thing where one goes chiff and the other goes chaff).

Team spruce made what can only be described as light work of tidying the mosaic area where we started. The amount of work looked like it took more than an hour but apparently was really quick! (Will leave Mel to fill in more detail here…)

All that was left was to have the customary tea, biscuit and chat before heading off into the glorious sunshine.

Until next time…

Welcome to the annual transformation from Night Shelter to B&B. The tasks included painting, cleaning, shifting things and eating left over food.

The cleaning was mainly of the bathrooms and what an amazing job was done! Painting was continuing the excellent job done on Thursday with roller and brush. Shifting? Well how do you fancy moving a tumble dryer? You do? Excellent! Finally the eating. All I can say is 😋 Well done everyone. I’ve eaten my ice cream I got on the way home so this is the end of the report!

Until next time…

A rare Thursday evening task for Janka, Darren and Melanie to kick-start the Guest House regeneration to B&B status.

In a fairly small room, barely any paint was transferred from tub to trainer to floor as most was definitely on the walls, ready for a second coat on Saturday when the Big Clean happens.