The itchy & scratchy show: too mulch to do.

We started the night with congratulations to Rachel, Mel, Judy and Maura for their 10km race at the weekend - Maura bought her medal in for show & tell.

We then headed out to Baffins Pond to meet the Baffins Pond Association where they had planned for us to dig out the small dipping pond but it was too overgrown so we headed to the far end of Stagg's Wood and dived into looking after the trees there.

There was some impressive wheelbarrow racing from Jo(hn) Barrow(wo)man, Lucy and Mel who were going back and forth to the mulch pile to fill everyone's buckets. Meanwhile everyone was hiding in amongst the young trees freeing them from their plastic corsets and then clearing the grass around them so that the mulch could be added.

Sitting in amongst grasses and hawthorns as well as bindweed and extremely sticky plants proved to be a rash decision as most people ended the task quite itchy with some grazes and some allergic rashes. Lucy prescribed a dettol or savlon bath (sounds like it might sting!) and Jen suggested a slug of anti-histamine. There was also talk of gin but I'm yet to be convinced of gin's medicinal qualities!

On the way back we took no prisoners, stopping for a quick burst of star jumps, lunges and squats outside the old prison while we all regrouped before hot footing it back to the community centre via a busy St Mary's Road - almost like it was a summer evening!

As always. the team at Baffins were very thankful for our work and even though we felt like we could have carried on going, we did manage to make good progress.

Hope all your red itching has died down by tomorrow!

See you at a good deed very soon.