A very different task today helping the lovely folks at Southampton stand up to racism create hearts out of willow to be used in the refugee week march taking place on june 22nd.

Wilson, Judy and I were very keen and eager to get going and after a demo from Steve who explained not only how to make the hearts but also how they were inspired by the green grenfell hearts we got to work.

The willow needed bending, masking together before we went nuts with pva glue and tissue paper to create our hearts. It was tricky and a bit fiddly but very rewarding.

We hope our lovely creations are put to good use at the march in a couple of weeks time.

Tonight we visited Shirley Warren Action Church for the first time to tackle their community garden. A great task sourced by Wilson. It's a beautiful space with lots of lovely plants and bushes. Unfortunately, the brambles and bindweed had begun a takeover so we needed many hands to make a dent! We were lucky the rain held off and welcomed Hilary for their first task and hope to see them again soon. Stephanie and I set to work at the side of the church clearing an overgrown bank. Meanwhile round the back the rest of team worked on clearing the beds and paving of weeds with Hannah in charge of monster bramble duties. Hannah brought us cake to finish and Steph donated some bananas which we're looking forward to seeing in cake form next week! Well done everyone for making great progress taming this community garden. We are excited to see how much impact we can make on our next visit.

Barcode scanning at Eastleigh parkrun.

Handed out finish tokens at Southampton Parkrun

Back on the farm this weekend to help out with their community nature volunteer days helping to build an accessible maze which is to become a living food bank.

Id pre warned Tom we had a good number of signups and he was keen to put us to work! We got stuck in with levelling off the ground, lifting and assembling more planters and planting sunflowers.

It was lovely to have Ioana and friend join us for the first time, they did an excellent job levelling off and raking all the ground! It was also great to welcome back Duncan and Lucy, fortunately the rain was only momentarily upon us today unlike at the YMCA!

We decided to let Stephanie loose with a sledgehammer and Hannah did a great job ensuring everything was kept level!

We got a lot done in a short amount of time and the maze is certainly starting to take shape! We look forward to returning again soon

We arrived from all directions cycling, running, walking, and in cars for those who had to get to more good deeding before the evening was done! Our task was to help tidy up the Scout hut garden which is a neighbour to Rose Road and used by their day service. There was long grass and weeds a plenty so we set to work on different areas to get the job done. Wilson and Hannah volunteered for grass cutting and strimming. They unbelievably managed to keep going for the whole hour as the grass really needed a short back and sides. Strong effort team! They were careful to leave some longer sections with some clover for the bees. The rest of the team worked around the car park area and building to clear weeds, clumps of grass, dead leaves, and brambles. Stephanie and Leszek worked on trimming the hedge and clearing bindweed off the fence. Sarah gave us a top tip to use a screwdriver (or similar) to loosen the weeds. We learn something every task! We were rewarded for our efforts with some jelly babies and we’re excited to hear Rose Road should have lots for us to help with throughout the summer :)