Our first 2023 outing with Friends of Maidenhead Waterways - and waterway to get stuck into the New Year!

Our mission was to continue clearing the Marsh Meadow ditch of weeds and debris, to enable water to flow into the regenerated Town Centre streams. With the forecast wet and dreary weather, many would have decided to ditch this task, but not this hardy bunch!

Cold feet, the wrong kind of weeds, the wrong kind of fork, Wallace & Gromit style 'wrong trousers', wet hands, wet arms, wet water trickling down Rachel's back... if you were Jay-Z you might say we had 99 problem, but the ditch wasn't one.

In fact, the ditch was wonderful! Sliding into on your bottom was a pleasure, it was just the right depth and squishiness underfoot for joyful wading, and by the time we had finished, a great stretch of it was looking satisfyingly clear.

There were also plenty of other things to like about this session - the fresh air, the mud, the hot coffee and biscuits (thank you Jordan!) and most of all, the delightful company and team spirit. There was much laughter and happy chatter as we worked.

Also , Tony from FoMW was wearing enough bright colours for it to feel quite tropical at times. There was one moment when we imagined we were in the Deep South, and another where Rachel declared it was just like a hot tub!

Well done to Rachel and Sheila for cycling to and from the session, on top of the ex-stream-ly good workout we got from the task.

Thanks again to FoMW for welcoming GoodGym to another brilliant work party and supporting our January challenge. Loads more great sessions coming up soon...click here for details.

Four GoodGym runners, Amy, Jack, Jordan and Sara, made an early morning start to meet at the beautiful Widbrook common, where we were greeted by the Friends of Maidenhead Waterways team. After tooling up and squeezing into some waders, two teams split up to tackle separate parts of the stream. Jordan represented GoodGym on the west side, while Amy, Jack and Sara trundled along laden with tools alongside Alisdair, Mel and Ted.

We started work about 100 yards from the road, clearing the river of many, many reeds and other foliage which I lack the botanical knowledge to name. Basically a load of muddy, green stuff! Rakes and telescopic poles were in order to clear as much as we could from the bank, with Amy and Jack being the designated ‘waders’ for pulling up reeds and reaching the far bank! Amy showed an impressive determination to tackle the ‘root’ of the problem by pulling reeds up at the base, Jack managed to avoid getting soaked into his wader despite coming inches from disaster on multiple occasions, and Sara must now hold the world record for reeds raked out of a river over a 2 hour period!

Friends of Maidenhead Waterways very kindly supplied us with coffee and penguin biscuits, which were very happily received! Eventually we had to call time on our muddy misadventure, although Amy took more convincing to get out of the river than anticipated! A fantastic morning that got us immersed (quite literally) in nature. We may feel a bit sore in the morning, but the satisfaction of seeing the river section cleared and flow freely will definitely bring us back again!

Juli, Nick, Carina, Jordan and newcomer Monika - welcome to our group - met Rachel and Deb from Wild Maidenhead to give a bit of TLC to the wildflower bed in Kidwells Park which was established last year. Now that the flowering season is over, our task was to tidy the bed ahead of winter, cutting down the dead stems and raking over the soil to encourage the wildflower seeds to germinate. A small area was left uncut to provide a safe haven for wildlife and some seed heads for food. We quickly filled two giant bags with the dead stems, and had to employ Jordan to compress the contents so we could finish our task.

The sun setting through the trees made a lovely backdrop for six GoodGym helpers tackling a range of tasks around the grounds of Burchetts Green School. Juli planted birch trees while Jordan set to work on the greenery around the front gates. Amy, Hannah and Nicola pulled up weeds around the car park, and Sophie jet washed the climbing frame until it was so spotless we were scared to pose for our group photo on it in case we made it dirty again! Afterwards, Amy, Juli and Sophie headed off for a run to make the most of another sunny evening.