A storm in a tea cup

Wow the weather nearly wiped us out tonight! With torrential rain, wind and a tornado like wind just before we were due to meet , we all hunkered down in our cars or homes a little bit longer than planned.

Luckily it blew over very quickly and the sun came out so we all met a little later but the task was back on.

We were met by the Head teacher Helen who pointed us in the right direction of the pond and raised beds where we were carrying out the task of clearing the 2 remaining raised beds ( we did one of them last time ) together with some further pond maintenance carried out by our resident pond team consisting of BelindaPaulJohn and Barbara

Paul literally waded into the pond with his wellies on to remove a lot of weed whilst John assisted with his long pond tool. Paul also assisted when the end of John's tool fell off and Paul rescued it. What a hero! Barbara and Belinda was also assisting where necessary as well as pruning around the decking in preparation for the little people to investigate their natural surroundings.

Meanwhile - at the raised beds the team were tusselling with some very overgrown and neglected shrubs whose roots had grown well down into the earth below the timber construction. Ryan and Sarah braved the weather ( surprisingly brave - Sarah !! ) together with Paula Daisy and Gillybean who all worked tirelessly to try and shift the shrubs, weeds and grass all deeply embedded into the earth.

in the last 10 minutes committed members of the pond team joined to give some much needed help on a final push to clear the beds. We then returned to the pond to admire the hard work and spot the living world underneath the water.

Many apologies for the late report- blame Teddy!

Next week there will be 2 tasks - 1 in Ferring and one meeting at Splashpoint. I will share the details on what's app today.

Have a great ( rest of the week)

Julia xx

Sweeping away the cobwebs

Thank you to my team tonight - Barbara and Paula were all set when I arrived . We were then joined by Paul who was fresh from ski-ing and also Gillybean who it was great to see back again.

We had been invited back to Linfield House garden which is a regular task for us during the spring and summer months. However today it looked as if we were beaten to it. Both green bins were fairly full and nearly all the beds looked very tidy and in order. However we did find some weeding to do and also a fair bit of pruning of the clematis to remove the dead wood underneath it.

50 minutes later we ended with the only photo of the night ( Belinda - I think Ive forgotten to take them since you have been in charge of photography the last few weeks!) and mulched our debris into the green bins.

Looking forward to seeing you all next week at our new task and Birthday celebrations

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/english-martyrs-school-pond-and-garden-help

Any questions please do let me know.

Have a great week !

Julia xx

Rain, Rain, can you just go away

Oh my goodness - after a sunny morning and early afternoon that showed so much promise for a light and dry GG task, on arrival, we were faced with the worst of the worst . It was dark, wind, rain and a chill factor that was not pleasant.

Barbara, after a challenging few months of illness and injury, was immediately told to go home - obviously she didn't! but thank goodness she didn't hang around too long - we want our very special Babs back to best ASAP !

It was so nice to see Paula back to a Monday task and what a glorious night of weather that she chose for it!

Thank you also to Johnand Daisy who also turned out in the horrible weather to try and finish this ongoing project.

Massive thanks to Belinda who was on her photography duty again ( wishing her poorly thumb a speedy recovery )

Digging in

With hoods up and garden forks in hand we got down to the heart of the digging and weeding. Another night where we were so grateful for Uncle Ivo's lights!

45 minutes later and enough was enough ! We down tooled and attempted to remove the cloggy mud from our shoes.

I think its fair to say that we were not dorry to say goodbye ! What we really need is a decent GG jacket for nights like this .......

Have a great week.

Julia xx