Great evening clearing up the Regents Canal towpath!!

Amazing to have Sean along for his first GG outing as we met at Britania leisure center and picked our way East down to Mare street.

Filling up 2 massive reusable bags of rubbish along the way!! Brilliant to remove so much plastic waste before it gets i to the water system and plays havoc with the ecosystem. Huge number of empty cans collected which we were able to put in the recycling bins so avoid landfill!

Awesome work Sean!! see you again very soon!!

4 GoodGymers Plogged there way along the Hackney section of the Regents Canal.

Head torches, bags, litter pickers, gloves and a smile was all we needed as we headed off to clear as much rubbish away from the Regents Canal tow path!

Aiming to reduce the contaminants that get into the canals ecosystem to help it to thrive as well as making a safer more enjoyable route for all the walkers, runners and cyclists to use as they navigate through the Borough.

A potential celebrity sighting (undone by head torch glare). Lots of very encouraging and thankful comments in great company with some fun chats in luckily lovely weather (for February) made for a quality time which was super productive grabbing 4 big bags full of rubbish!

Enjoyed the task and look forward to doing it again!!

After a few busy weeks time opened up for another little session doing some canal side maintenance to help out the Canal & River Trust.

At previous sessions we concentrated on keeping the main path and specifically a blind corner clear from brambles trying to snag passing walkers & cyclists. In passing I noticed that others seem to have taken on that task as well, leading me to focus on some other nearby areas - a pathway from the Millfields Orchard to the main road & bridge to the cricket club.

The goal - provide better access for local residents to reach the orchard & park The tools - secateurs, clippers, lobbers The time - Friday's lunch break

The result - part of the path cleared of head-high branches and knee/waist high weeds & brambles!

After a few hiccups on previous attempts today the stars did align correctly to tackle the bushes hindering cycle & pedestrian traffic on a blind bend along the river Lea.

Upon discovery that the bulk of the problem were brambles and their natural spiky thorns there was a moment of regret knowing that the sturdy gardening gloves were still at home.... luckily the hastily packed work gloves were a decent enough substitution!

The big shears came out and were the right tool for the job, smoothly cutting through stems/branches/etc until there wasn't any threat to passers-by anymore and a clearer view into the bend was created.

Lunch break over, it was time to pack up tools and litter-pick on the way back to the work van (note to self - clear rubbish out of van in the morning) and back to the day job, wondering how long it would take nature to fully reclaim this seemingly dumped bike...

P.S. ... the first blackberries are ripening and tasting fine!

Due to work commitments the previous session had to be rescheduled. Unfortunately this meant my usual partner-in-crime Dharmesh was unable to make it, leaving me to get on with trying to get some sort of control over the wild-growing greenery along the canal path.

Checking out the target bend, it turned out that another session will need to be scheduled soon, since there was some complicated looking cable work going on right in the hot-spot... So instead a few other bits got the attention this time, with a litter pick attempt in the process. Whether people come through here are very neat or that the boating family keeps this section clean I dont know, but there was hardly any litter around, a pleasant surprise! It did turn out that under water there was the odd surprise beyond vegetation, as shown by the fished-up 'Boris-bike' along the edge of the path!

Overal, happy with getting some work done, but didn't get to sort main problem - to be continued!