As you may have guessed from the pun, today involved bunting and harvesting. Thanks to our resident pun queen Frances for the title.

Jobs today helping set up for the spring fair:

Putting up a gazebo - as previous veterans of this we laughed in the face of the gazebo, 5/10 difficulty rating.

Flower arranging - but not real flowers that’s cruel, artistic merit 7/10.

Putting up bunting - I’ll tell you what I bunt what I really really bunt, everything. Bunt rating of 9/10.

Picking marigolds for crowns - only the finest marigolds sans roots were harvested for the crowns, royal rating 8/10.

Moving benches - what can I say, benches were moved in a horizontal and sometimes vertical direction into their desired location, flimsiness rating 7/10.

Harry - just enough attention, fuss rating 9/10.

Always a lovely task and definitely didn’t burn today… the elderflower drink was very welcome. Time for an ice cream, I’m going for a classic magnum.

Until next time…

In surprise news, it didn't rain on the early May Bank Holiday Monday, so the ground was both rock hard and not actually muddy in Brunswick Cemetery.

Whilst Melanie took on a Find The Penstemmon challenge, and seeing what else was hiding amongst the weeds under the robin's supervision, David, Richard and Janka took to the path edge finding and weeding even more sticky bud from the "dog poo bin bed" which is, itself, blissfully free of dog poo thanks to the dog poo bin in the corner.

A couple of weeks ago when we were there on Easter Monday, it felt like we had some control but nature has done its thing and everything has had a growing spurt of monumental proportions and seven bags of weeds were taken out over the two hours before we headed to Stokes by The Orchard for lovely Bank Holiday lunch and more chatting. I think the Porridge Shop business plan is ready to go , despite the Porridge Project being unable to make their ides a success before Covid times.

Short report today as I write these on the walk back and I had to eat an ikea hotdog and enjoy being outside. Soo…

Today’s task was to make our way along the path on the viaduct cutting back anything encroaching onto the path. Some artistic license was taken but overall we made the path more usable (no pictures as evidence as I forgot though some pictures of the day thanks to Frances). Today’s top questions, is that a strawberry and would you eat those mushrooms? I’m going maybe and hell no! The perfect weather to be out with the dappled shade and great company.

Until next time…

As if we hadn't had enough of litter from the last session, we jumped straight into helping the Berry Maze with their Annual Easter egg hunt/community litter pick combo. Though this time, it was a bit tricker as the Malago river itself had many months of fly tipping building up. Only one way about it, wellies on! Freya and I got slightly damp and at points very stuck, but we did managed to get the bulk of crap out of the river(3 Tvs, 2 trollies, 1 wardrobe, 1 sound system, many many bags of clothes.) Frances, Jason and Rich had found a doorway into another world of fly tipping, mostly doors. 6 doors in fact! They also gave aerial support to us riverfolk with lifting bulky stuff out the other side. At the same time Emma and and Janka were busy clearing out the Berry Maze maze, keeping Barney happy is a very important part of the job, as his jokes get worse the more weeds there are in the maze. between us, the berry maze, and the locals, we managed to make a massive impact on the local environment, and green spaces. Big thanks to everyone who came along,

Bit of a special session this week, as we were joined by a swarm of locals who were concerned and wanted to do something about the fly tipping in the area. Even a local counciller got their gloves on and helped out. On top of some stellar GG litter picking action, we even managed to create a new wildflower bed, with extra thanks to newcomer Elaine who wasn't afraid to pick up a fork get stuck in on the action!

We managed to neatly pack the trash so that it could be collected by the council quicker, then hopped accross the road for another litter session at the Berry maze! Thanks all, see you next month!

Armed with small snips. big snips and panthers (and later a tree popper) one team headed up onto the viaduct. The main task was to remove sycamore but we also got some ash and there was some rogue nettle head removal! We also popped sycamore and the odd cherry while we were up there (👀). Surprisingly breathtaking. A highlight was seeing some ladybirds emerging from hibernation and some robins and chifchaffs (apparently one bird says chiff chaff and it isn’t a call and answer type of thing where one goes chiff and the other goes chaff).

Team spruce made what can only be described as light work of tidying the mosaic area where we started. The amount of work looked like it took more than an hour but apparently was really quick! (Will leave Mel to fill in more detail here…)

All that was left was to have the customary tea, biscuit and chat before heading off into the glorious sunshine.

Until next time…