Tonight we were tasked with inspecting the various types of fish passes on the weirs of the River Don for the Don Catchment Rivers Trust (DCRT). This is to make sure that fish are free to complete their migrations upstream unencumbered. The main species to make use of these are salmon, trout, and grayling, along with dace, chub, and barbel. The passes also help eels and other fish species navigate weirs that were previously impassable. The data and photographs we record are used by the DCRT to assess which passes need maintenance. Thankfully, on this occasion all of the passes we inspected were fully functioning with no obvious damage.

A fin-tastic time was had by all

We managed to survey three weirs- Lady's Bridge, Walk Mill, and Burton Weir- before running into a blocked section of path, which I thought, wrongly, that we would be able to negotiate. We did discover that this section was blooming with blackberries and rosehips, if any foragers are looking for a tip-off. The fenced-off section is absolutely thriving with no foot traffic passing through.

The following is the gathered inspection data for each of the passes. Lady's Bridge: Clear at top. Clear at bottom. Flowing freely. No damage visible or debris present. Walk Mill: Clear at top. Clear at bottom. Flowing freely. No damage visible or debris present. Burton Weir: Clear at top. Clear at bottom. Flowing freely. No damage visible or debris present.

Storm Floris was blowing, the rains had raged earlier, but the sun was now making an appearance and a "live and picking" team of hardened Goodgymers braved it outside to tackle the litter in the Grey to Green park and cycle path by the river Don.

To celebrate 300 good deeds, Céline was entrusted with the much coveted Sheffield GoodGym Cape.

Genial Gerry from Sustrans welcomed and tooled us up, and away we went into the Sustainable Urban Drainage System that are planted with beautiful flowers in bloom, pickers in hands and rubbish bags blowing like sails, buds in the SUDS!

Annie, right arm in a sling and picker in the left, undeterred by a recent gruesome fall from her bike, was determined to gather all the drinking cans - an amazing CAN DO attitude!

Both teams from GoodGym and Sustrans, all together, we managed to pick our way through all the beds along the river, and a real tower of rubbish bags was collected.

We were even treated to a welcome slice of chocolate cake from Gerry at the end, we got our just desserts, before heading for a meal at Sheffield plate to celebrate together.