Work continues to rid the beds on Ray Mill Island of the dreaded winter heliotrope and replace it with something more interesting and wildlife-friendly. Mick and Sheila joined other volunteers digging out the heliotrope and replacing it with donated plants. Mick also tried his hand at fashioning a plant support out of dogwood stems to keep a Spirea from overhanging the path. And a pretty good job he made of it too - every day is a learning day!

Sheila and I were outnumbered by non GG volunteer Friends of Ray Mill Island today. Whilst Sheila got stuck in to sorting the donated plants by type, I joined a small team moving wooden boards from the paddleboarders round to the nursery.

Next we all relocated to the kiosk and rockery areas where Shoshan had placed plants in pots ready for us to plant them in the ground and water them. With a bit of weeding the Heliotrope it was a very green fingered session.

Christine and Jen arrived at Ray Mill Island at the same time to be greeted by an enthusiastic Tara who needed help transferring some plants from the garden of a nearby resident to the island for replanting.

The exciting news was that we would be paddleboarding to the residents garden and using the paddleboards to transport the plants back to Ray Mill.

Having safely boarded the paddleboard, I had a practice paddle (it had been a while since my last paddle) then Christine joined me at the rear and off we paddled in convoy.

The garden was beautiful and even after digging up lots of plants to take back, you couldn't spot where we had been.

After some strenous digging it was time to paddle back to base and drop the plants off at the nursery.

A Goodgym Mission extraordinaire and being out on the water was absolute peak Goodgyming for me.

Our 5 merry Goodgymers went on planting trees on this nice and sunny Saturday afternoon. Trees needed to be moved and planted elsewhere. Wheelbarrows were moved, dirt was dug,water was poured and weed was removed : a very efficient session on this island.

But it wasn't without counting on the current drama happening on the island: female duck being courted by 3 suitors (or 2,maybe only 1 and the others were there for the fight, it wasn't really clear). A story we didn't have the end of. Hopefully on the next episode/session, things will have calm down on the island for the wildlife.

A beautiful spring afternoon saw Nivi, Rachel, Christine, Anne-Laure and Sheila join the weekly work party at Ray Mill Island. Anne-Laure was keen to do raking of leaves to help expose the grass, and Nivi helped another volunteer paint tree signs. Meanwhile the others tackled the enormous Phormium plant which needs removing from the new nursery area.The team last week had done a good job of starting to dig it out, so our task was to try and finish the job. Armed with spades, loppers, a half-moon cutter and a pruning saw, we started attacking the plant. Some side shoots of the plant were saved for planting up to generate new plants. It was a tough old job, but we kept at it and eventually we were victorious, severing the plant from the earth.

The session at Ray Mill Island today was all about letting light through to enable plants to grow in amongst the trees. Sheila and another volunteer spent the session dragging the branches and brambles that had been cut down last week, to the compost heap. Thick gloves were required! Meanwhile Mick gave the dogwood and hawthorns near the cafe a good haircut