Running alongside the River Severn on our way down to Chapter Meadows we wished we could pipe some of that water over to the newly planted saplings we were about to help. The meadows are beginning to look more like a desert with parched yellow grass instead of lush green pastures. Poking out from the undergrowth, our plucky saplings are trying their best to keep going. To help them out we removed the long grass around them and put it back down at their base to form a mulch. It gives them more light, helps to get more nutrients to their roots and helps retain any water if and when it rains. Most of the trees are doing OK but a few had already dried up completely so couldn't be saved. Hopefully we'll get some rain soon otherwise we'll be back with some buckets to get some of that river water on to them. Liam and Marcus ran back to The Hive while Kirsty enjoyed a spin on her bike.

It was a nice (and very familar for parkrunners) run round Pitchcroft racecourse to get to the Community Garden on Tuesday. We were there to build a flood garden but arrived to find another volunteer group had beaten us to it. The job was already done! Luckily the Community Garden is never short of jobs for people so we were quickly assigned some new tasks to keep us busy. It helps that Alison is a regular volunteer at the gardens so knew her way around and showed us the ropes, or in this case the chips! In front of us was a large pile of wood chips that was cluttering up the entrance to the wildlife garden and needed to be bagged up. Soon we had a fleet of wheelbarrows queued up and Kirsty, Fiona and Liam armed with shovels and ready to fill them up with the chips. Meanwhile Alison and Marcus were set to task cleaning up a bench in the wildlife garden and a kitchen sink unit that will be used...well we never found out what it was for! After 30 minutes of shovelling and scrubbing the whole place looked neat and tidy again with the chips in the bag and everything swept. We finished our lap of the racecourse to get back to The Hive and had definitely worked up an appetite for some chips of the potato variety!

Mid afternoon I receieved a message from Carry from St Wulstan's Church to ask if we were still coming given how hot it was forecast to be. I said of course but suggested we might be moving a bit more slowly than usual!

In the end we all met at the church with a gentle cycle ride for some instead of a run and as usual Carry met us with a smile and stack of cups ready to keep us hydrated. Alison and Kirsty took up the brushes and the grey paint to give a bench a new lease of life while Marcus was given the task of painting a well used picnic table. They should dry in no time! Half an hour of our time saved Carry 2 hours of her time and we all enjoyed an evening in the sunshine.

Great work GoodGymers!

How many times have we run along the river path without paying any attention to the amazing wildlife oasis that is quietly being nurtured in Chapter Meadows alongside us? It's a project that's being coordinated by Tom and we enjoyed hearing about the latest developments in the nature reserve as we all ran down from The Hive. The newest residents are Shetland Cattle that will be used for controlled grazing as long as they can be convinced to stay in the right place!

Our job for this evening was to give some tiny saplings a helping hand. Hundreds of trees were planted last winter and they now needed space to grow. We all sat pulling up undergrowth around each one then gently laying it back around the base, which Tom explaind helps in 3 (tree?) ways: It reduces the competition for nutrients and light The dead grass turns to mulch to help feed the sapling The mulch helps to hold moisture near to the sapling. A simple but very effective way to make sure this patch of rough grass will one day be a beautiful copse.

I'm not sure how many trees we worked on for but there are hundreds left to be sorted out so we will definately be needed again. I don't think any of us will mind given how pleasant an evening it was.