Bank Holiday and Pride 🏳️‍🌈 weekend in Manchester, so just the solo litterpick this evening for Ben 🚮

At the meeting point in St Peter's Square, there was already a collection of coffee cups and beer cans to dispose of, perhaps setting the scene for what was to come. It was a short 1 km jog to Greek St near Grosvenor St before gloves and litterpicker were unsheathed.

There was a burst on the green space, taking some pics 📸 of the new planters from Ardwick Climate Action before skirting around the encampment that had sprouted up. Afterwards, I went down Kincardine Road to litterpick around the edge of Gartside Gardens, collecting a few more bags of litter.

The biggest surprise was the 29 laughing gas cannisters collected from within a 50 yard stretch of road and in the park. Big haul, all reported to Keep MCR Tidy and the council for collection.

Welcome to Gloria for completing your first GoodGym task and getting your first parkrun volunteering credit marshalling out on the course 👏

Well done to the 553 finishers including 123 visiting us for the 1st time with 16 people completing their first ever parkrun 💪

Big thank you to the 24 volunteers who made sure we got a full set of results and marshalled out on the course 🦺

On Monday evening this week, we were back at Eden Gardens Orchard in Philips Park to give the trees inside the orchard a bit of a trim. Ben and Peter completed a couple of laps of the park, while Scott cycled on a scenic route and Sanjeev used public transport, all to converge onto the site for 6pm.

The main focus was a plum tree overhanging some neighbouring plots in the allotment site. We were provided with ladders, various loppers (manual and ratchet varieties) plus a range of bow saws, hand saws, plus pruning saws (one of which could be extended to reach the high up branches). Peter was the main protagonist with the saw, climbing the ladder to saw the target branches and trunks to remove, while Scott and Sanjeev trimmed down any pieces to fit inside the tonne bags. Ben stabilised the ladder and caught any branches coming down from high up, combining this with a lasso-type method to encourage them to fall on the right side of the fence.

After tidying up the cuts and moving the equipment to the orchard side of the fence, we were tasked with pruning (lopping) a larger tree inside the orchard. While more accessible, the trunks were certainly thicker and through a combination of the extended pruning saw, tied ropes, and gravity, we managed to get the desired branches down, with only a few cuts and grazes to show for it.

The remainder of the tasks involved us trying to cut the pieces down to be small enough to fit in the tonne bags, with the larger and thicker trunks left. Three overfull tonne bags later, we were done, with the midges starting to come out and bite.

Tough task, with a loose adherence to health and safety, but we seemed to enjoy it all the same. We will be back at the orchard in the autumn and perhaps in the park to clear some areas for future planting.