You Don't Come to Goodgym 'FoR-est'

Tonight was an exciting night for us as we set off for a brand new task! Tending to the Tiny Forest which is located in Frank Bott Avenue in Crewe.

A Tiny Forest is a dense, fast-growing native woodland, the size of a tennis court. It brings the benefits of a forest – connecting people with nature, raising awareness of the environment, helping to mitigate the impacts of climate change, as well as supporting urban wildlife – right into the heart of our cities and urban spaces.

It was our first time at the Tiny Forest, apart from Maurice who'd been to the open day/information event. But before we set to work with our task for the evening, we set off for our weekly run. Tonight we found ourselves in another area of town that we’d never run in before and we were pleasantly surprised by the amount of green space that surrounded us. We set off and did a circular route and although I’d planned a route, we ended up taking a slightly more scenic detour. Luckily, we had Emily with us who knew the area well and could get us back where we needed to be! We did a decent 2.5 mile run tonight – a really good effort!!!

Back at the task, we surveyed the work that needed to be done. Sadly, the signage at the front of the forest had been defaced with graffiti. We hadn’t come prepared with substances to clean it off with but we grabbed some hand sanitizer from the car and a pack of baby wipes andClaire set to work (with the addition of plenty of elbow grease) and managed to get all the graffiti off! It looked so much better once it had been cleaned up.

Maurice, Emily & Nicola did a litter pick inside the tiny forest itself and around the surrounding area. It’s surprising how much litter we collected…. 2 big bin bags. Amongst the haul were some socks, underpants and a golf ball!!!!! Nigel will be very disappointed to learn that he’s missed out on finding a golf ball!!

Once we’d collected all the litter, we set to work on the weeds. I won’t lie… it wasn’t easy to differentiate between the weeds and some of the wildflowers, so we concentrated on the grasses, dandelions and the weeds we could identify!!! We were joined by a young local resident who saw what we were up to and asked if could come and join in. He can’t have been more than 8 or 9. It was really nice to see him wanting to get involved though.... Hopefully he’ll come back…..

We filled a couple of bin bags with weeds and just as we were getting towards the end of our task, the weather turned, and it started to rain. It was the perfect time to pack up and head home. It didn’t really feel like we made a huge impact tonight (I think we could have spent a week there and we still wouldn’t have got through it all) but I know we did. I’m sure we’ll be back again at some point though to have another go at getting rid of the weeds.

Well done everyone on another fantastic effort. It as great spending the evening with you as always. You are the BEST!

Have a great week and hope to see you next Wednesday! Lots of Love Nicola xxx