A change of tasks saw us head the shorter distance to one of our regular haunts, at New Walk, rather than making the more epic journey to Fulford Green, but we more than made it up for it with our fitness exploits (more on that later).

Tonight we welcomed newcomer Anne Mair who was joining us for the first time as part of a volunteering challenge that she'd set herself. Great to have you with us in 🥳

We also gave a round of applause to the absent Stef and James who had completed the Malta half and the Drop Harrogate respectively. What a fab effort and from them both 💪.

We then numbered off by stating our favourite birds in honour of the anniversary of the US military retiring their last working pigeon on this in 1952. We had everything from Seagulls to Robins, but only when they're perched on top of snow!

It was then off to the New Walk with Babs leading a large walking group, Ed leading run and Pete backmarking. We also had Rich join us on his bike along the way.

At the task we were greeted by Maeve who was armed with scythes, rakes, forks and spades and set us off removing the docks so that other species could prosper. Although, not before Kit had spotted the perfect opportunity to recreate a famous scene from Titanic, with a little help from David (aka Leonardo DiCaprio).

The crew made light work of the task and needed little instruction as the docks were flying left right and centre. This gave Ed a chance to go and check out the course for the fitness session, leaving Leanne briefly in charge, who ensured that everyone was having a much better time without him!

With the bags of docks and weeds filling up, a team of runners were needed to shift them quite a distance further down the path. Unfortunately this meant a little bit of a wait for them to get back once the task had finished, but we duly filled the time with some birthday squats for Claire, who had celebrated her birthday over the weekend 🎉

And then, after a quick group photo, it was time for the fitness session which featured varying lengths of a hill rep depending on which card you drew from Ed's pack. Hearts for the 1st lamp post, diamonds for the 2nd and so on. No surprises that Matt's team ending up winning by completing the most reps, although there may have been a little bit of manipulation of the cards!

It was then back to base with a quick stretch and a pint for those in need of liquid refreshment

Another not so lazy Sunday morning spent shovelling woodchip. Never a team to miss an opportunity - felled trees for housebuilding were spotted, raked, bagged, wheelbarrowed and reclaimed. We're 3/4 of the way to mulching the young Tiny Forest saplings. Excellent work followed by hot drinks, sweet treats & chat. Thankyou for all your hard work.

Eight of us went to help Brunswick Organic Nursery in the beautiful Archbishops Walled Garden in Bishopthorpe. Special shout out goes to Claire who came back early from holiday to spend two hours of her 60th birthday digging. Also to Leanne and James who had already done volunteering and litter picking at YoCoWo parkrun beforehand. Our task was to dig out and level an area of ground outside their woodwork polytunnel. We levelled the ground to 4 inches below the edge ready for hardcore which was going to be tampered down to create a hard standing area for the woodwork group to use in the summer. The leftover spoil was barrowed onto the nearby beds. We dug deeper where the soil was good and refilled with the stony edge soil. As it was a longer tasks we had a tea and cake break in the middle and enjoyed some delicious Brunswick home baked cake. Claire had the additional birthday treat of seeing a kingfisher in the larger garden when we went through to look.

On a misty morning, Leanne and James met at York Community Woodland for some pre-parkrun litter picking.

James had double booked himself as a parkrun car park marshal at the time of the mission, so turned up early to make up for it. He'd already managed half a bag of litter when Leanne cycled past to start litter picking from the other end of the track. She found an abandoned trolley just as her bag was getting too heavy, so made use of it to collect even more litter on the way back to the car park to return the trolley (and see James in full marshalling flow).

Unfortunately there weren't any bins in sight to leave the collected litter, so they had an extra workout carrying it 800m back down the track before joining the parkrun crowd for a quick(ish) 5km run.