Friday afternoon arrived quickly and it was time to head to the Community allotment to help to water the plants.

Christine, Didem, and Angela joined Sol on a very sunny afternoon. This made the task a quick and enjoyable work. We chatted away about summer trips and sampled some raspberries.

Discussion about kale, onions and leeks ensued, and we admired how well the runner beans have grown this season.

Watering was done in quick time, and Sol was able to head off to Birmingham a bit earlier.

Happy weekend!

Carol, Caroline, Karen and Sheila were given the job of doing checks on the school uniform donations at the Baby Bank. They were checked for the usual criteria of cleanliness and being in good condition. once finished we moved onto the adult clothing - it made a change but definitely not as cute as the baby stuff!

This evening, Diya and I spent a bit of time in the sun weeding the garden for Mrs P. She is unable to tend to her garden now and can't quite see the weeds properly. We made sure to get as many of the weeds (and none of the plants) as we could! Mrs P was very pleased and grateful.

A smaller group went back to Ray Mill Island on what was a relatively cooler evening than previous visits!

The team there has started putting irrigation in place, so we won't need to water plants anymore #selfreliance. We got stuck in where we left them previously - cutting out logs from a pile of bush for them to be put next to the river stream.

Mike already knew what to do and was straight into it with his very sharp saw. Roberta, Didem, and Diya weren't entirely sure how best to saw but a new skill was unlocked very quickly, and we were soon in the thick of it. Teamwork makes the dream work!

Once we had a full trolley of various lengths of wood, Nivvi navigated it to the stream where task owner Shoshan laid them on the bank. The idea is to create a kind of a barrier to prevent the public from going into the water. We now know what tethering logs mean!

Sheila and Juli were joined at Braywick Heath Plant Nursery by Mel and Sarah for their first ever GoodGym session. Our task for today was to clear the tinder-dry weeds from a large area, as there was concern that they were a fire hazard. We set to work with loppers, shears, a hoe and a rake, clearing the area, and pulling the weeds out where we could. The local moggy came and inspected our work, but stayed pretty aloof refusing all attempts to engage with her. Thanks to everyone's hard work, much of the plant material has been removed and it also looks a whole lot better. We hope that we will see Mel and Sarah at a future session

The plants in the nursery area and the plant troughs at Ray Mill Island were badly in need of watering. With no weekend work party sessions at the moment, Sheila answered the call to help out. With the hose pipe ban, and all the watering cans having gone walkabout, everything had to be watered by bucket!