That rare thing: a litter pick with not much litter!

A couple of years a go Port Meadow was a litter hot spot, with tonnes of litter being left on the meadow regularly. Since then the situation has improved, but as it's a SSSI, a scheduled ancient monument, and also home to cows and ponies, it's always worth a scout around to check that the litter isn't getting out of hand. With good weather forecast over the Jubilee weekend we thought that a lot of people might come to the meadow, and that might mean that there was a need for a clean-up this week. Of course, we all know that the long weekend was actually a bit of a wash out! Still, we turned up en masse to scour the river bank and favourite picnic spots just in case.

Julian Cooper, the Port Meadow ranger, met us at the gate with sturdy bags and litter pickers, and directed us to the areas he wanted us to check over. Half a dozen GoodGymers set off towards Burgess Field to clear up some hazardous broken glass, while the rest of the group pottered along the edge of the meadow, over the bridge to Fiddlers Island, and along the Thames Path past the boat yard.

Port Meadow was a Victorian rubbish dump, and bottle diggers take spades to it to search for potentially valuable Victorian or Edwardian glass bottles. Bottle digging is hazardous as the holes are rarely filled back in by the diggers, causing danger of 'trip' injury to humans and livestock, and it also disturbs glass and other Victorian waste below the surface exposing it and causing the risk of serious cuts. Livestock have died in the past from injuries caused by broken glass. The recent rain had brought more glass to the surface where bottle diggers had vandalised the meadow, and our breakaway group filled a bag with pieces of broken glass. Literal life savers.

Meanwhile the rest of our team meandered along the riverbank and across the meadow. We were surprised and delighted by how sparse the litter was. Aoife's crew, who headed over towards the boat yard were the only group who found significant quantities of litter. Other than that it was a few cans, wrappers, bottles, a blanket, but really not at all bad considering how it used to be. In fact, the situation was so decent that we called it a night a bit ahead of schedule which meant that we just escaped the downpour. Unfortunately, the hardy bunch who headed to The Medley for pizza afterwards got a thorough soaking alongside their dinner, but you can't win them all, and the pizza was worth it.

What's a GoodGymer to do when caught in the rain without a rain coat?! Kudos to Henry and Julia for taking part in this week's Project Runway challenge of making an outfit out of a spare litter bag. Garland of joy went to Louise - Happy Birthday for last week!

Oxford City Farm is a lovely task location, and they're always really enthusiastic about getting a GoodGym flash mob in. It's a fairly large site, with lots of tasks to do, so that can be a bit overwhelming for their small team. Last night they were really well prepared for us, with a list of tasks on a white board (love a good list!), and tools laid out in appropriate locations around the farm.

Divide and conquer was the name of the game.

After 'What's your favourite farm animal?' as the question of the day, we scattered smaller teams off in different directions to see how much we could tick off. The jobs we completed were:

• Emptying the 1 tonne bag in compost corner
  
• Bagging up the rubbish near the entrance gate
  
• Clearing the willow leaves and twigs off the chicken run roof (one for the tallest GoodGymers)
  
• Weeding the onions by the scarecrow wearing the motorcycle helmet (yes you read that right)
  
• Hoeing the paths around the raised beds
  
• Weeding out some epic bind weed roots - Genevieve got the prize for longest root
  
• Cutting back the brambles, dock leaves and general jungle behind the toilet block and around the bike racks, including detangling bindweed from the fig tree and raspberry canes. Thought you'd seen the last of brambles after the last 2 weeks? Think again!
  
• Spread wood chip by the bike racks and behind the toilet block
  

The only task we didn't manage to get to was removing the thistles from around the strawberry patch, but hopefully that isn't too bad of a task for someone to complete on another day.

Our power hour over we were treated to freshly cut lettuces to take home and a chance to feed the VERY tame sheep. Oxford City Farm sheep are not your average farm animal - they're more like pets that come running when you rattle their food box! Always a hit with the GoodGym crew.

Thanks to Phil and Maria from the Farm for welcoming us in to commune with the chickens, sheep and Peter the rabbit. If you're keen to visit again soon we will be helping out at their open morning next Friday. All the details are here.

Welcome to GoodGym Genevieve!

This week we revisited South Ward Allotments.

Our particular set of skills had been requested by the manager of the site to help cut back brambles (what else?!?) threatening to take over one of the plots and block all important access to the main water stopcock.

Armed with a variety of cutty things we plunged in and soon amassed quite the bramble mountain. Goodgymers will not be defeated when it comes to brambles.

We chopped away, chatting as we went about parkrun, the upcoming Blenheim Triathlon, the ridiculousness of the housing market, our jaunt to Marlborough and chips.

After a last minute panic involving a lost pair of secateurs and a dismantling of the aforementioned bramble mountain, we stood back and proudly surveyed our handiwork.

Good work team! Welcome to Charlotte it was lovely to have you along this evening!