Jessica, JP and I came to support the Friends of Ham Lands once again for our monthly volunteering session to improve the butterfly habitat in our local area. Sufiyo met with Jessica to give her some information about the plans and jobs set out for us in order to support the wildlife in the area. Our task for today was to rake up the grass, roots and brambles to clear an area set to become an open space. JP entertained us with stories of a musical comedy show he’d been to recently while we worked to fill the giant bag of bits. Once the bags were full we worked together to drag them over to the other side through the brambles and dump them out. In raking up the soil we came across many worms that JP managed to link as siblings or cousins of the last worm found based on their features! Jessica kept focused on our task and warned us not to sniff the soil and twig piles we had been gathering. We were even rewarded with some lovely homemade ginger biscuits at the end. The three mattock-eers needed to rake a break after the hard work we’d put in and said our farewells to the Friends of Ham Lands until next month!

What a turnout! And on a soggy day too!

Welcome to Clare, Rachel, Chris, Tash and Laura on your first GoodGym good deed! It was brilliant to have you join us and extra kudos for coming despite the rain - you're clearly all made for GoodGym!

I'd texted the lovely Sufiyo from the Friends of Ham Lands to warn her that lots of people were signed up, which meant that she found a task that required many pairs of hands, lots of strength and lots of squats!

With so many new to the project, Sufiyo gave a very useful talk to tell us all about the butterflies project, what it's all about, why we do it, and how we do it. Very helpful for us old-timers too! Sufiyo also explained that we have a new strategy of focusing on one area for lots of weeks and then seeing if there is any impact on the biodiversity - so hopefully we will be able to see the results of our toil.

After a good briefing, we got cracking - you almost had to rain in our enthusiasm!

As the saying goes, where there's a Jane, there will be roots to yank - and boy were there lots and lots of roots! We know that Jane will always get to the root of it, and she didn't disappoint - and neither did anyone else, there were roots being yanked all around the clearing. Jenna even seemed to be following a root to Ham Parade such was her commitment to the cause!

Jo and I decided it was almost the festive season with some good old hoe hoe hoeing, although Jo may need some more convincing about the magic of a good hoe-down... We managed to fit in a couple of document checks for DBS applications (yay to more runners getting coach and mission verified!), and chatted about how GoodGym is such a great way of finding your feet in a new place - oh, and the question of "does it ever get rained off?"

After a good hour of rooting for the butterfly cause, it was time to pack away and bid Hamlands farewell for this month - but look out for next month's return visit, on the second Saturday of November. Same time, same place: see you there!

Finally, thanks "Kingston Kate" for the pun!! And go on, give Laura, Chris, Rachel, Clare and Tasha a cheer! Woop!

Remember that path that we formed in the winter months? Well.... Yep.... Turns out those pesky nettles and brambles had completely taken over, the path was, well, de-pathed and now a miniscule deadly corridor with higher-than-human-height nettles for its walls. Enter at your own risk.

So we were tasked with reclaiming it back from the nettles and brambles, requiring sheers, loppers, and nerves of steel to brave the stings. Jane had us off to a headstart having joined the Friends of Ham Lands at their start time of 10am, whereas the rest of us rocked up at the GoodGym time of 11am. Inspired by the progress they'd already made, we continued the work and had a good old chinwag along the way.

We raked up the nettles and brambles and left a path fit for actually walking through again - good job team!

It was another scorcher along Richmond towpath but balsam needed to be bashed! 4 GGers donned gloves and waded into the foliage, braving the nettles and brambles to tackle the towering Himalayas.

We had joined the Friends of Ham Lands (a group of volunteers who work with local naturalists and the Council’s ecology officer to preserve and enhance the natural habitats of Ham Lands, create habitats for wildlife and arrange walking tours to show the wide variety of flora and fauna), who were spread out along the path past the riverside car park in hi-vis jackets.

We split off from the main group and took on several large patches of the marauding plans, enjoying the satisfying pop of balsam being bashed. Our brief was to leave the plants in piles and soon enough we had made many mounds.

After a thoroughly enjoyable time dodging stingers and scything through the undergrowth we packed up and headed home, ready for a cold shower!

After yesterday morning's Parkrun and butterfly habitat conservation mission, a group of intrepid Kingston Goodgym runners braved the nettles to return to the scene by the riverside again this morning. While the Parkrun was good, it was also a little bit hazardous due to brambles, nettles and other thorny plants encroaching on the paths. We were warned of this at the start and there were a few scratches along the way. We decided to do something about this! A call out was sent to do some path clearing on the running route for our local Parkrun.

Our call was not only answered by 4 Goodgymers but also a local regular Parkrunner - Piere and the Volunteer Coorinator for the Kingston Parkrun - Jaqueline Chang and her family as they'd heard about it on twitter. It was so lovely to have Jacqueline and her enthusiastic helpers come along to help us too. We're lucky to have such great support to make our local Parkrun events happen each week!

We met the lovely Sufiyo of the Friends of Ham Lands group as she came to support us and guide us and lend us her tools! We are so grateful for this wonderful partnership!

We managed to clear a large mound of brambles, bind weed and nettles from the path in only a short amound of time! Caroline even got a chance to do her first Himalayan Balsam pull! Speaking of which - there is a lot more where that came from so we'll be getting set to organise some more balsam pulling missions in collaboration with the Friends of Ham Lands soon!

It was great to have Hannah joining us on her first mission as a Mrs with a bigger ring on her finger!

Many hands made quick and light work of opening up the path and it is now safer for the runners and other users to enjoy. We were encouraged with words of appreciation from the Thames Path users as we worked to widen the path and reduce the risk of nettle stings! It was a very successful and rewarding Sunday morning's work. Thank you very much to all those that came to help!

After having not had the butterfly project in June due to the Ham Fair, it seemed like an eternity ago that we had last joined our Friends of Ham Lands.

Today we were joined by Camden's Katie, and after MANY months of waiting, we found lots and lots of butterflies and caterpillars. At last!

We worked on cutting back the brambles and yanking out the bindweed from the borders of the path leading to Teddington Lock. Rob was on Machete Axe Duty and persistently (and with concerning levels of enthusiasm) hacked at roots that remained after the bramble snipping. Although it turned out that we shouldn't have been cutting the ones with berries on as the insects and birds feed on them - despite it almost being the end of term, every day's a school day...

We bagged up along the way, hauling the giant brambles into the giganticist of giant bags, and then moved further down the path and repeated. You know what they say: hack, attack, bag, repeat!