Kymm and I arrived at Waterman's Park in the May sunshine ready to get stuck in helping local volunteers to maintain the green space.

We were joined by Gus and Luis and were briefed on today's tasks; give the dragon path that the volunteers have created in the middle of the park another trim to keep the shape, or weeding and pulling up lots of long grass threatening to steal all the light from the plants.

In the warm sunshine and with the ground dry from lack of rain it was thirsty work. The volunteers were happy to have our help and assured us several plants would now survive with more access to sunlight, and hopefully a long drink.

We needed cold drinks after an hour in the sunshine, before Gus headed over to Hanwell Hootie and the rest of us headed home for a lie down!

On a lovely warm and sunny Saturday morning, 6 Goodgymers joined the Friends of Ham Lands for our monthly session of habitat improvement and preservation.

The session started with a short talk from Paul, who explained his work on monitoring insect life in the hawthorns on the Ham Lands, and how it has been a bumper year especially for caterpillars.

Our task for the day, to nobody's huge surprise, was tackling brambles - this time those hemming the edges of bushes and hawthorn trees in an area at the northern boundary. We went at them with gusto, enjoying the warmth of the sun as we built up piles of removed brambles before moving them into the undergrowth.

A warm welcome to Helen who joined for her first session!

June be a skipped month for this mission, we will be back on the Ham Lands in July, on Saturday 11th.