We had a really nice time yesterday joining BVA and Walk N Talk for a mental health walk.

Meeting at the War Memorial Park Christine for her first session with GoodGym beat us all there and was chatting with Jude from Walk N Talk when we arrived.

The purpose of the session was to get out and enjoy a walk while meeting some great people and some conversations about mental health. We got straight into it and I had a great conversation with Sammi & Dan from BVA about mental health, particularly after a long week of work. While Evelyn had a nice long conversation with Jude.

We then went down to Blackdam Pond where we must have seen every duck in Basingstoke!

Last night we had a small but effective team out clearing Eastrop Park!

Tazmin and I met at the Social club before walking towards Eastrop Park where we met Mohamed who was back for his third session in 3 weeks. We joined Sandra from the council to focus on the playground here.

We had looked after this same playground 6 months ago and it was nice giving it another revival as a lot of the tanbark had spread back into the main play area. Mohamed and Tazmin fully cleared this section while Sandra tidied everything.

In the mean time I was a wandering weeder making sure to clear nearly all weeds from the area.

At the end of the session I was once again amazed by how much we could get done in just over an hour!

We had a great time in Oakridge last night delivering flyers on behalf of the Ready to Ride program, Mindspace and GoodGym.

Was great having Mohamed for his second session and Charli & Yeun back after being away across August!

We had an excellent session yesterday with Natural Basingstoke! We were met by Alan from the NB team who took the team to a former allotment near the train station which Natural Basingstoke is trying to rewild.

This involved dead-heading the flowers from the Golden Rod plants which aren't native and try to take over areas. The team managed to do 2/3rds of this before heading over to the Holy Ghost Cemetary to collect pine cones for Childrens Crafts days.

It was great having Mohamed down to their first session with GoodGym. The session was excellently lead by Tazmin & Luke did a lot of work while also taking the photos.

I think we have a new contender for weirdest bit of litter that we have found in our time here in Basingstoke with a whole number plate!

We had a great time litter picking last night, it was beautiful weather for it and the vibes were high. Lily & Sam joined for their first session and got straight into the swing of it fitting in really easily.

As always Sammi, Yazid & Tazmin were in great form providing plenty of laughs.

In all we collected 4 full bags of litter around the Queens Mary area, we also found some delicious plums which I enjoyed!

Our Monthly Walk Together Session in conjunction with Ramblers last night was certainly overshadowed by the eclipse!

However it was a really nice session where we walked through War Memorial Park where Tazmin brought out their trusty colander and some tissue paper for our first attempt at viewing the eclipse.

As we didn't get a clear view of it there both Luke & myself decided to periodically look at the sun to see it with our own eyes, and so far we aren't yet blind.

We continued from there through to the amphitheatre in the Lime Pits where we joined a hundred odd people sitting on the grass enjoying the stunning weather and enjoyed the show.

IT was a very nice evening filled with fun chats and good times