It was the final task of a series trying to clear all the invasive Himalayan Balsam plants from the Lewsey Brook, one of the tributaries of the River Lea. Teaming up with Jen from TCV and some of Luton's regular conservation volunteers.

It was also the first task for Niamh joining us after seeing the session on Facebook and Petros returning for his second session.

With the continued drought conditions the brook was bone dry so we were able to climb in without getting wet and hunt for the balsam plants. They got pulled up, roots snapped off and left to dry out on the brook side. This section of the brook was thankfully quite light on the balsam so we got it all done in a couple of hours and was able to collect lots of litter as well and take a walk back upstream to double-check the areas we'd done in previous weeks.

This session completed the length of the brook, a whole kilometer! We'll see what pops up next year but we've prevented loads of new seeds from being laid so hopefully there will substantially less to do next year!

This week we welcomed Zoe to her first Goodgym session and delighted to have a newbie on board we warmed up and headed off to the 61 football club, a 2.5km jog away.

On the way we were treated to a clear view of the partial solar eclipse and enjoyed the cooling effect of the dimming light on an otherwise hot evening.

On arrival at the football club Richard directed us to the newly built pitch-side dugouts. We grabbed the bucket of paint and rollers and got stuck in, turning the grey blocks a nice brick red.

Working close together we had a good chat and got to know each other a bit and catch up with all the latest in our lives as we worked away on the painting. Time flew and before we knew it the walls were red, time was up and we had to wash up and hit the road again. There's one more dugout to go so we'll be back to finish the job!