Lisa and Sol joined the friends of Maidenhead Waterways for a Saturday morning session to help to clear river stream.

There was a last minute change of the location due to a high water level in Cookham. We ended up working at the Widbrook Common, which had been our usual location over last two months.

We split into two groups and headed to the furthest edge of Widbrook Common to clear tree branches clogging up the stream.

We worked from the bank with long rakes and pulled branches and weeds out to open up the stream. We worked our way back and tidied up where needed. We had our well earned tea-break in the meadow. Coffee and biscuits tasted so delicious in the countryside setting.

This marked the end of working on the Widbrook Common, as the bird nesting season will start and no more distractions intended to the wildlife.

Next sessions will be working in the town centre to improve the York stream.

It was a lovely crispy frosty morning for an early start to Saturday with a joint effort to clear York Stream from brambles on its banks.

Clara and Sol joined the friends of Waterways to work on the banks to cut off the overgrown brambles.

Amy joined us in the very beginning to present a medal to Clara for completing 50 good deeds! Amy had also prepared delicious flapjacks. It was such a nice surprise!

Afterwards we split into two teams: Clara joined a team in the boat to cut brambles from the opposite bank and Sol helped the other team cutting brambles into smaller chunks to gather in garden rubbish bags.

Passers by cheered us on and thanked for the effort. The coffee break came soon and we got the opportunity to sample the flapjacks and coffee.

We continued our never-ending fight with brambles until it was already midday. Even two swans came to inspect our work at the end of the session. They were so beautiful!

This Saturday morning was all about Dragon debris and litter out of York Stream and the surrounding area with Friends of Maidenhead Waterways.

Dominic and Tony joined the FoMW volunteers to clear debris from around the weir, while Kanika, Kate, Sol and I joined another volunteer litter picking along the banks - a task that soon progressed into a full scale battle with a huge bramble bush. Hence, Game of Thorns!

We started with litter pickers but soon upgraded our Tull(y)s to loppers and long-handled rakes and hooks to reach the heaps of captive bottles and cans.

Nick and Juli happened upon us on their way back from parkrun (Volunteer Coordinator for Nick and a season's best for Juli - nice one!) so we invited them to Bolton to our community mission. They were a great help, hauling out bags of litter.

The weather wasn't too Greyjoy and even though there was Ice in the water, we were wrapped up well and there was Fire in our hearts! We achieved a Stark difference over just a couple of hours.

If you Arryn('t) busy next Saturday morning then look out for a listing for another work party - this time wading at Marsh Meadow. Can't wait!

P.S. Don't forget to sign up for this Wednesday evening helping task owner Lou Tyrell at Holyport FC. Click here for all the details.

P.P.S. If anyone can think of a way of working the houses of Lannister or Baratheon into this report then please comment below!

It was a nice clear morning to start the weekend with a Waterways session at the local Widbrook Common Stream.

The session started very positively with exchanging greetings as we pulled up the waders. Then Clara said: there is some stone in the boot and had to get out of waders again to get it out. She actually found Tesla keys (looked like a Tesla credit card to be honest) in one of wader's boot. Amy jumped into joy and screamed: my Tesla key!!

She had lost Tesla during her previous Waterways session.

Afterwards, we headed to the Widbrook stream and soon discovered that the meadow was flooded with the excess rain water and we had to walk through knee-deep water just to get to the starting point.

We relied on a pile of recently cut wood logs to put our bags and tried to establish where the firm gound stops and the stream bed starts.

Phil and Paul were wading in the stream and we helped from the river bank. The water flowed as did the conversations and laughs as we pulled the reeds out of the stream.

This felt like an adventurous session, where we are not quite sure where the safe ground is and it creates that feeling of what if we cannot get out of here?

At one point, Clara stepped a bit too far into the stream and started to get stuck in the mud. Amy was by her side and heard a very polite: Please can you help me?

This was the first Coffee break standing in the water and leveraging termos and biscuits on pallets positioned on the higher ground. Water logged Coffee break will certainly be a memory of 2024!!!

We reached the fence that marked the meadow's end and our task was completed for the day!

We slowly headed back across the flooded meadow and it felt as if the water level was even more higher than in the morning. Talk about that visual illusion!

This was the last of the Friends of Maidenhead Waterways sessions on Widbrook Stream.

It rained consistently when we met in the morning, but, as they say, Rain did not stop the play!

This time, we crossed the road and worked on clearing the weeds on the right side. Rains stopped when we started wading

The water level was higher, but the banks were slightly different and it allowed me to wade into stream a little bit (without getting too far in).

We were a team of six and worked together and progressed quite considerably. The tea time came soon enough. We enjoyed coffee and biscuits.

Renewed energy allowed us to work till 11.30am, as we accomplished to clear a quite long stretch of the stream.

We walked back to cars and I picked up newly accumulated rubbish on the road side.

It was nice to see the stream cleared on both sides of the road. A job well done!

What a wonderful sunny frosty day for a Waterways session! Morning started with an absolutely marvellous mix of frost and sunshine as we all walked to the Widbrook stream with our tools and pallets.

Rachel, Tony, and Sol joined Maidenhead Waterways volunteers to pull out reeds, bulrushes and other plants to widen the stream to increase water flow.

Tony had a full drysuit, and he joined other waders in the water. Sol and Rachel helped from the bank as water level was too high.

Rachel commented on a stinky smell, which was created by mud around the roots of bulrushes. We made jokes as we were trying to get access to water through overgrowth of bulrushes. It was such a good laugh as we found our way to balance our weight on pallets.

Tea break came soon enough with much welcomed coffe and biscuits. And chatting away.

We reach the point were the road crosses the stream. We stopped for the day and will restart the other side of the road at the next session.

Such a good workout! Such a good deed done! Such a good feeling of satisfaction!