Peter Van Tongeren

Its always good to be greeted by the Task Owner and clients of the SHP Project. Today some of the group were sitting round the garden table joining in with the Big Garden Bird Watch while others were tacking the never ending weeds.

As an added bonus we were joined by one of GGR's finest Peter who was busy foraging for rubbish from the minute he walked in the gate finding everything from motorcycle accessories (from close by vandalised vehicles) to discarded bits of plastic furniture.

We turned our attention to putting up a notice asking people not to fly tip at the corner of 'our' shed, Peter, Lorena (Task Owner) and Chris (SHP Volunteer) then cleared the cloche of old bedding which involved ingenious use of long sticks and litter pickers in case there were any discarded drug user needles 💉😳 Safety First 😊. We also made plans for moving the planter out of the green house and the shelves from the cloche into the green house. There was a little debate about if an old rusty wheel barrow was suitable to be up-cycled as a planter. Last minute SHP Client Trevor arrived and did a quick fix on the eaves of the shed so they reached the guttering to the water tanks...maybe a bit too quick...note to self, check for leaks next visit. 😬

Before we left Linda and Peter took a look at the vandalised vehicles and Pete took details to report them as we had seen local school kids tempted to pull more bits off them.

Over all it was an enjoyable session quite a bit got done and even more planned for future sessions.

Isn't 'always be prepared' a scouts saying?

It did work out that way this evening, where a litter picker in the boot of the car came in very handy when discovering some pyromaniacs had been trying to burn a smashed up bin and a stack of Metro news papers, resulting in molten mess and partial burnt paper all over the place.

Bin full of rubbish cleared up, field safe for kids again.

As part of our ongoing connection with the lovely 'St Peters in the Forest' church we headed over tonight to help clear weeds & ivy off some graves, so they can be identified if possible.

Welcoming Tony from the Waltham Forest team at our little base in Wanstead we packed some additional lights and set off on the run to St Peters, chasing down Sharon who set off before us.

At the church, James & John set to clearing up a large pile of weeds & ivy & brambles already cleared by others, while Julia took charge leading the rest into clearing more graves, discovering some very interesting grave stones along the way.

Time flew by clearing & chatting, before we knew it was time to round off, pack away tools and make our way back to base. Only a section done, so we'll be back another evening!

Next week we are meeting at Hainault station, please do sign up here to join Julia for a new adventure in that corner of Redbridge!