The rain clouds held back, just as Wilson had forecast!

A big welcome to Eva on her first task. She got stuck in and helped clean up the exercise area, give the drains a good tickle, make some of the kennels shine, and fetched the sandpaper and paint to spruce up the benches and cable drum - truly a tail-wagging transformation.

Our reward? Play time with the dogs! Tails wagged , toys were fetched and hearts melted. Samantha took it one step further and helped clean a little hippo's ears! Cuteness overload!

We did this litter pick in two parts, first we cleared the litter that had been exposed by the bramble-cutting where Wilson found a tennis ball with their name on it and Samantha found Steve hiding in a box!

After a brief pit stop we cleared lots of litter from the hedges on the way to the kennels. We filled a big bag but had to leave lots behind for a future visit.

Four Super Slugbusters at Aldermoor Farm this evening on a mission to hunt for slugs, gathering them in a bucket ready to feed to the ducks in the morning. Wilson arrived about thirty seconds late — a rare event, given how often they preach about being early — so Abby and Ellie took full advantage, pressing their faces against the gate and insisting they’d been waiting ages. This ended up being a bonus though, because it meant they’d already had time to do a quick litter pick before Wilson had arrived. Plenty of slugs were found, especially on the infamous “slug tree,” the slug buckets were filled and carried well by Sarah and Abby making the whole task a slimy but satisfying success.

We all set off very excited for our first evening of toad patrol on Hensting Lane. All day we hoped for rainy, mild weather and we were lucky the rain set in as we were setting off. The first stretch of the lane Mike showed us the ponds to release the toads into and told us lots of information about the toads including how to identify male and female toads. Our first find was actually a newt! On the walk back up the lane all the toads had started to make their way to the road. In total 14 male toads, 5 females and 3 newts were helped to safety. Sadly two toads got run over so it goes to show how important the patrols are as it could have been a lot more without our helping hands. Now we just have to hope for some more mild and rainy evenings in February and March so we can go help again!