Jess, Amy and Sheila joined several other volunteers at Ray Mill Island on a beautiful afternoon. Today's task was to cut back the undergrowth which was overgrowing the path. We set to work with spades, loppers, secateurs and shovels, loading the debris into wheelbarrows. We got several loads of beautiful earth which we can use for potting up plants. Some of the plant material will be used to build up the dry hedge and the rest went on the compost heap. So nothing went to waste. By the end of the session we had widened the path by nearly a metre, and taken several pampas grass plantlets to grow on. A lovely session and it was lovely to see so many people enjoying the Island this afternoon.

4 Goodgymers met with a small group of Friends of Ray Mill Island (including four mini Friends) for some family friendly Island TLC.

The main job of the day was to widen the main path running in front of the playground and cafe. This involved digging away the earth at the edge of the path and transferring it by wheelbarrow to the compost area. At the compost area a couple of volunteers sifted through the soil to remove roots. The mini friends enjoyed looking for the worms and transporting them in the wheel barrow to a safer place.

The path team then moved some logs and branches to mark out the new edge.

There were lots of squirrels taking an interest in our work with one particularly curious squirrel who befriended Jen and one of the mini friends.

Nivi and Sheila joined other volunteers at Ray Mill Island on the damp and cold afternoon. Our task was to plant up a couple of beds, one of which had been cleared and dug-over by Goodgym last week. We found plenty of fat, juicy earthworms, an excellent sign, and by the end of the session all the plants were in their places. Sheila quickly painted a couple of signs politely asking the public to keep off the newly-planted areas, and we were done!

Today's job was to focus on weeding, tidying and edging a small section of garden next to the toilet block.

After a joint effort to move the collection of logs, Angela and Sheila got stuck into weeding and turning over the plot. Jess and Jen turned their hand to digging little trenches near the edge of the plot and placing the logs into the trenches to secure them. This meant Genius Jess could put her finally honed Tetris skills to good use, by the spade, to select and place the logs to form the edging.

Whilst Sheila finished the weeding and turning Angela turned her hand to thinning out the box hedge running along one side of the patch.

The transformation was amazing by the time we downed tools and called it a day

Sheila joined 7 other volunteers at Ray Mill Island. Sheila and Lucy were painting bird names onto the back of the panels already done so that they could be seen from the back too. We then moved onto tree names, having to look up how to spell Ginkgo. Fuelled by a warming herbal tea and home-baked biscuits mid-way, we had a productive afternoon

I met with a small working party from Friends if Ray Mill Island (FoRMI) for a bit of Island TLC.

We cut back a hazel tree and rescued the branches to finish the dry hedging at a later date.

We moved onto cutting back other overgrown trees and doing some general tidying up. We took it in turns wheelbarrowing the branches to either the compost area, the dry hedge area or the children's play area for repurposing.

FoRMI meet from 1pm to 3pm every Saturday and would love to welcome more GG volunteers.