Nia, Val and Abby joined the friends of nore barn woods in their monthly conservation activities on a beautiful saturday morning.

The team split and worked in three different teams. Val was working on building a boardwalk out of reclaimed branches for the super muddy path in the north of the woods. Nia joined the team in raking all the debris off the paths that the recent storms had brought in and Abby was having a mud bath assisting with digging a trench to help divert future flood water away from the paths the public use. At the end of the task I am proud to say I had earnt the label 50 shades of clay!

We worked hard all morning and treated ourselves to a well deserved lovely lunch in Emsworth.

We had family-fun finding the tiniest bits of coloured plastic and rope within the high-tide seaweed at Hayling.

There was Laura, and her Mum, Marion, and mini-GGer Jack; and Val with apprentice-GGer Cameron.

Digby-dog made friends, while the wind flapped his ears. Abby did a sterling job trying to fill the most-gigantic compost sack. And Nia won the get-fit-while-doing-good prize, by coming by bike from Southsea to Hayling by ferry and up the Billy trail.

A satisfying task that will be repeated when the Bike Ride to Billy is rescheduled.

After some more spring cleaning we were able to collect and donate duvets to the Southampton Street Angels, a local group who support people experiencing homelessness in the area.

We helped with litter picking for Baffins pond association this morning. Val, Nia and Aoife interrupted a squirrel gathering in the woods and Abby almost had my hat stolen by grandad squirrel.

We circled the woods and picked up lots of sweet wrappers, cigarette butts and pieces of glass. Found some interesting fungi and Judy managed to find 3 tokens from last years Easter egg hunt a year after we hid them!

Finished off with making friends with a lovely Italian greyhound called Wilfred 🐾. Also managed to see a massive swan sitting on his nest! Maybe keeping his eggs warm? Looking forward to seeing some cygnets in the future!

Another pile of newspapers collected by GoodGymers and delivered to the hedgehog rescue centre.