It was Gill's turn to lead our small group run tonight, and after a quick warm up we headed off along New Bedford Road to Cowslip Meadow. The mention if Golden Rid by Dave had lead some if us into a false sense if security, as our usual Golden Rod patch is not too far out of town. So finding out that we would be running twice as far was a bit of a surprise. But the temperature had cooked and it was a lively evening to be running. On arrival at the What Three Words location we couldn't soot any if the dreaded weed and had just about resigned ourself to a fruitless mission when the combination of Ella's eagle eyes and Gill's first encounter with Google Lens reassured us that we had found our target. The ground was either relatively soft, or our pulling power was in max strength as pulling out this invasive pest was relatively simple and we had several piles to take back to the gates. The run back was even more enjoyable, with the slope now in our favour, and the sun dipping down further, and it was good to know we'd got just over 7km under our belts too.

With the Party in the Park coming up in a few weeks a huge team assembled to distribute information to all the residents who will be affected by road closures over the weekend.

Team from Goodgym joined those from the council, Noah, x-4rce and the international cafe to get out in groups and deliver all the letters.

This week's group run was a return to the very long task of removing invasive goldenrod plants from the riverside meadow.

A few years ago when we started tackling this task the plant covered the whole meadow and was shoulder high all over. The big thick clumps took all our might to pull out.

After several seasons of pulling by us and other volunteer groups the meadow is showing massively improved biodiversity and the goldenrod that remains was just knee high little seedlings and shoots from fragments of root left behind last year. The pulling was also much easier as they didn't have as firm a grip of the ground.

With six of us picking our way between plants and pulling up piles of plants we made a huge impact toward finally getting this patch cleared. Plus we got it all done before it went to seed! We'll see what returns next year but it won't be much and we'll be back to finish it off once and for all.