If you went down to Ingestre Woods on Friday... you'd have had a big surprise!

The woodland nestled behind Ingestre Road Estate is usually sedate, silent even, but on Friday it had movement. Twenty two lots of movement.

Weaving between trees and traversing muddy banks were several folk bagging oodles of litter. They were so swift that from a distance you could only see the glimmers of their litter pickers. Across 80 minutes, this team absolutely transformed the look and feel of this special space.

Based down in the depths of the woods were a group looking to go even deeper. They were our diggers for the day, and they were helping both us and the local frogspawn. The pond they were deepening has become a favourite habitat for tadpoles, yet our hotter summers have been drying out their home. Thanks to this group's efforts, the Ingestre frogs will be a happier bunch this coming summer.

Across the way on the other side of the estate, there used to be a hill. Until Friday that is, from when it started taking shape as a meadow. These were our weeders, rakers, and shakers. They pulled out the deeply bedded weeds, raked the topsoil, and sprinkled a wild mix of wildflower seeds. The ascendant rain sealed the deal, and the blooms to come will push all memories of bare hills from residents' minds.

Hidden within one of the estate's walkways, our final group were bringing expectant life back to a forgotten collection of flower beds. They pulled the winter weeds before carefully planting the summer bulbs, gifting the walkway the promise of seasonal colour.

Helen (who heads up Ingestre Estate's tenants' association) and I are so grateful for your help and work. The sheer amount you achieved far exceeded what we expected. The woodland is expected to re-open to the public over the coming year, and your work has made a material dent in the work that's needed to make that possible. You've also made an immediate difference on the look and feel of the estate's green spaces, and I know this will be hugely appreciated by residents. Thank you.

I fell asleep expecting a morning of pond digging. I think I even dreamt about it. Spades and mud, and digging deeper and deeper - first one pond, then two, then multiple puddles and pools - and people shouting "dig faster, Alex, dig faster we said, Alex, the ponds need digging, Alex!!!......"

...and then I woke and saw... the rain...

... which meant a damp journey to the lovely Ingestre Road Community Centre (a stone's throw from Tufnell Park station), where I was met by the wonderful grouping of Charlie, Emily, John, former Camden AA Pete, and Ingestre TRA supremo, Helen.

If you haven't been to Ingestre Woods, it's a tucked away spot of green sanctuary, housing mature trees, winding pathways, and a whole host of natural wildlife - it was a joy to be there today.

Having donned gloves and zipped up our waterproofs, we looked at the pond and agreed that it was simply too much of a pond today to be dug, and we swiftly turned our attentions to a large and expansive shrub covering one of the slopes. Thick branches mixed with green foliage and small berries in a mass of dominating nature, and we later learned (thanks to Charlie's quick eyes) that it was a cotoneaster, native to the mountains of Tibet... and the slopes of Kentish Town!

Across two hours, we collectively snipped, sawed, cut, and pruned, removing a quite massive amount of nature whilst sharing conversation and stories - it was wonderful.

Helen, Pete, and the Ingestre TRA will be using the cut away shrubbery to create a dry wood hedge, and the newly aired space will mean the surrounding fence can be repaired, the ground cleaned, and new ideas for plants considered.

Thank you, everyone - I had such a lovely time - and your work is hugely appreciated!

(Thanks Camden Linda for the pun...)

At the end of last year last year we planted some trees in Ingestre woods. The local TRA and the nursery recently asked us to help further by making some plaques for the existing larger trees, to label the species.

John and Caitlin, despite neither being carpentry experts, managed to create some roughly rectangular bits of wood for this purpose, from large, thin pieces of wood which were quite resistant to keeping still while being sawed.

Meanwhile, Kate and Katie set to work repairing a compost bin, the sides of which were rotting. They chose some suitable pieces of wood from a pile of discarded planks, which seemed roughly the right size, measured them carefully and sawed them down to precisely the correct width.

Using an electronic drill, the rotten planks were removed from the composter, and when they were replaced with the newly -cut wood, the compost bin resembled one put together by an expert carpenter.

That's GoodGym - you discover skills you never knew you had!

A nice short but physical morning task in Regents Park.

We had two big ton sacks of heavy wet top soil to bag up and loaded into the van where it went to Ingestre Estate to be used in the raised beds and pots for trees left over from our earlier tree planting this year.

A good work out shovelling and lifting!

This week we we’re in Kentish Town practicing our carpentry skills cutting large pieces of board into various sizes for labelling trees in Ingestre Wood.

The rain managed to hold of mostly, fingers crossed for the same next as there still lots more to do!

What a fabulous sunny Sunday and very productive mission!

We had multiple teams taking on different tasks. Continuing the fantastic litter picking efforts from last week we found some very interesting items (the clue is in the title).

Thanks Linda for the report title!

A huge effort was made on sorting out the timber pile, cleaning it out and organising it as well as bringing salvaged timber from the allotment and other areas of the woods.

Then we had the tree planting team, that ended up being 90% prep work! Everyone got stuck in wedding, clearing leaves and litter. We had tons of leaves and broken branches that we relocated to the woods as a habitat pile. All of that before we could do any planting; within gaps in a hedgerow planted last year we put in new young Hawthorne, Blackthorn, Hazel and Dog Rose. All native trees that will provide great food and homes for nature.

Huge thanks to everyone regular and new for turning out and making it a great mission!