Work continues at Knaphill Lower School Garden. This week only Julie was there to support Vikki and Mark as they get closer to completing the restoration. The beds are taking shape and Julie dug and weeded the front beds so that they are ready for some more topsoil and then the fun bit - planting will be happening soon so do sign up for the next session!

*Knaphill Lower School Restoration Project*

Another Saturday morning and another opportunity to help out at Knaphill Lower School Restoration Project.

Wayne, Julie, and Stephanie met Vicki and her husband at the school to see what Goodgym could help with.

The garden has changed alot since goodgymers have been coming, really starting to come together.

The first task was for Wayne and Julie to move some logs from one of the out buildings over to the new secret garden luckily we had two wheelbarrows that made light work of the this particular task 😀

Stephanie then arrived and was tasked with cutting some big branches into smaller sections for the new bug hotel 🐞

Once Wayne and Julie had finished putting the logs in place they joined Stephanie and together managed to cut various sizes of branches that were neatly put into the hotel, 🐜

the ground was damp but at least it was not raining and we even had a little bit of sunshine ☀️

As I arrived at Woking leisure center some keen GoodGymers were already there waiting. As I grabbed a cheeky espresso from the cafe, GoodGymers Jemma and Julie joined me. As we were catching up, Anne sent a message letting us know she had arrived at the entrance with the litter pickers. Anne, Jemma. Agathe, Julie and I waited for one last GoodGymer. As we were all keen to get into some 'plogging' action, we each spread out and started to canvasing the entrance to the leisure centre and a little bit of Woking park, quickly making a big difference.

Olalekan, kindly let us know he was running a little behind, so I offered to hang back and let the others to stretch their legs and get started. They headed of towards Egley Road and I did some squats to stay warm. It did not take too long before Olalekan arrived and we were off. As I started to run out of the leisure centre, ran down Westfield Avenue, past the football grounds, seeing little bits of littler, here and there. I realised I had gone the wrong way!

After a quick call to Anne heading the main group, I had just turned off too soon so Olalekan and I back tracked and went up along Wych Hill lane. Back as a group we continued the great team work as we worked along Egley Road, and filling our first litter bag, awesome work from Woking GoodGymers 😁

Starting on a new bag we entered the cul-de-sac along Hawthorn Road, a magnetic license plate was found along with lots of cans and bags. As we came closer to Hoe Stream we knew it wasn't long to reach the leisure centre. As we had finished filling the second bag we added that to the bin.

We thought it would be a straight run along the stream back to the leisure centre, but realised that toads had taken some of the path to migrate to their breeding pond! After observing them with our torches, we, obviously, were careful to avoid them!

Thanks go to Agathe for the lovely drawing she made to illustrate our task.

Julie joined WEAct volunteers at St John’s Lye for more clearing of the willow trees growing across the grass area. Good progress was made, especially when Hayden got going with his chainsaw. The trimmings were all processed into a habitat heap. Looking forward to another session at Knaphill Lower School on Saturday.

Another session at Knaphill, sadly this week only Julie was able to attend from Goodgym. Vikki was already working hard with her family and today’s task was painting - a second coat on the wigwams, finishing off the fence and more green on the newly installed gate. Luckily the morning was dry and bright however the wind was cold. 🥶 great progress this week and plenty more to do next time.