It is always such a treat to be back at Boundary Brook Nature Reserve. Helen always find us varied jobs to do and today was no exception.

We literally made hay whilst the sun shone.

A few helped with sycthing the meadow and the rest of us raked up the hay and trundled it to the ajoining allotments to be used by the plot-holders.

Along the way we avoided ant hills and wasps nests, teasle prickles and I was in awe of Megan and her ability to shift mounds of hay single-handedly!!

Katie and I debated whether we would be tip-top medieval peasants or whether we would be tried as witches.........

A glorious morning.

This evening, we returned to Aston’s Eyot, a 32-acre nature reserve with public access. It’s a GoodGym favourite, as it almost always involves scything and offers lovely views of the river!

We split into two teams to tackle different sections. Our tasks ranged from using posts to secure log seating and sawing branches to open up the viewpoints, to scything the pathways and lopping back overgrown greenery. Along the way, we enjoyed watching the rowers, kayakers, and swans pass by.

It was the kind of task where we could see the immediate impact of our work. We even got to test out one of the log benches at the end and admire the newly cleared space. We were really pleased to welcome Akshat for their first GoodGym session!

Shady Aston Eyot was thankfully cool for a strenuous scything and fence repair task. Ruth assigned our tasks and kept a watchful eye on progress. There are always nettles to chop back; this time we scythed around a fenced in area, cleared an overgrown path and carved out a track to one of the many backwaters. James tackled his first scything task with gusto, quickly getting into the swing of it; for Vicky and Joe it was another battle with a familiar foe. The rest of the team tackled the fence repair. Burrowing animals create holes under the fence big enough for muntjacs to squeeze through, undermining the purpose of the deer proof enclosure. The task was to reinforce the fence posts, cable tie loose sections of wire and block off the holes with sawn up logs. Anja, Henry, Sarah and Steve used their ingenuity to make the enclosure deer proof once more and give the saplings a chance to thrive. Due to the heat, a group run was not on the menu. Thanks to the whole team for another great session and special shout outs to James on his first scything task and welcome back to Oxford GoodGym to Sarah.

Cutteslowe Greenhouses is still a fairly new venue for us, and each visit helps clear another layer of long‑abandoned detritus. Matthew hosted and pointed us toward today’s priorities: clearing the future café area, shifting fence panels, and relocating a fresh batch of materials.

The standout job was the polystyrene pile‑up. We gathered sheets from around the site and stacked them into a bright, tidy white wall beside the skip. We’ve stacked wood, bricks, blocks, stones over the years, but never polystyrene. A new material added to the GoodGym repertoire.

We also cleared the café area and watered a huge number of plants, much needed after last week’s greenhouse heatwave, when one tunnel hit 75 degrees.

A warm welcome to James, who joined us for his first GoodGym task and jumped straight into the clear‑up and poly‑stacking.

Another solid dent made in the Cutteslowe clutter mountain — steadily nudging the place from Cutteslowe toward clutter‑low.