It doesn't seem long ago that we were busy watering the trees at Laugherne Brook Nature Reserve in the middle of a scorching drought. But yesterday the trees were getting all the water they needed thanks to the rain! Luckily it had stopped by the time Liam and I ran over to the nature reserve from the Hive. We were met by Margaret who led us to the huge pile of bark chippings that had been kindly donated by the council. Our task for the evening was to shovel it into buckets and barrows and spread it around the base of each tree. Lots of carrying, lots of steps, lots of good exercise! "We'll just do as many as we can" suggested Margaret but with me and Liam on the case that meant doing all of them! The mulch will help provide nutrients to the trees, keep the weeds at bay and help retain moisture so the trees can get through to the other side of winter ready for whatever 2027 has to throw at them. We squelched our way back to the hive with soggy feet but big smiles after another fun GoodGym session.

Despite the recent rain, the plucky saplings at Fort Royal park are still struggling so the GoodGym crew were asked to come and lend a hand.

The run from the Hive served as a chance for Ruth to test out her legs before the Worcester 10k on Sunday while Kirsty arrived by bike. We all met at the top of the hill to see what Karen from Fort Royal Ranger had lined up for us to do.

A blackthorn hedge had been planted near the edges of the park so we carted barrows of water containers down to give them all a drink. Meanwhile Karen #2 brought mulch to be put around the base of each one. These actions combined help to keep the weeds at bay, give the saplings more nutrients and help hold moisture near to the base of the trees. Hopefully they will regain some strength over the next few weeks as the seasons change.

While we were working we got to admire the new mural that is being painted by a very talented artist showing a beautiful blue tit surrounded by flowers. It will be great to see this when it's finished.

There was then one more task left so we refiled the barrows with mulch and pushed them back up to the top of the hill to be met by last minute Liam who had arrived to help out too. He was soon issued a shovel and the mulch was spread beneath a large apple tree.

A fort-ifying experience for us all!

Running alongside the River Severn on our way down to Chapter Meadows we wished we could pipe some of that water over to the newly planted saplings we were about to help. The meadows are beginning to look more like a desert with parched yellow grass instead of lush green pastures. Poking out from the undergrowth, our plucky saplings are trying their best to keep going. To help them out we removed the long grass around them and put it back down at their base to form a mulch. It gives them more light, helps to get more nutrients to their roots and helps retain any water if and when it rains. Most of the trees are doing OK but a few had already dried up completely so couldn't be saved. Hopefully we'll get some rain soon otherwise we'll be back with some buckets to get some of that river water on to them. Liam and Marcus ran back to The Hive while Kirsty enjoyed a spin on her bike.

It was a nice (and very familar for parkrunners) run round Pitchcroft racecourse to get to the Community Garden on Tuesday. We were there to build a flood garden but arrived to find another volunteer group had beaten us to it. The job was already done! Luckily the Community Garden is never short of jobs for people so we were quickly assigned some new tasks to keep us busy. It helps that Alison is a regular volunteer at the gardens so knew her way around and showed us the ropes, or in this case the chips! In front of us was a large pile of wood chips that was cluttering up the entrance to the wildlife garden and needed to be bagged up. Soon we had a fleet of wheelbarrows queued up and Kirsty, Fiona and Liam armed with shovels and ready to fill them up with the chips. Meanwhile Alison and Marcus were set to task cleaning up a bench in the wildlife garden and a kitchen sink unit that will be used...well we never found out what it was for! After 30 minutes of shovelling and scrubbing the whole place looked neat and tidy again with the chips in the bag and everything swept. We finished our lap of the racecourse to get back to The Hive and had definitely worked up an appetite for some chips of the potato variety!

How many times have we run along the river path without paying any attention to the amazing wildlife oasis that is quietly being nurtured in Chapter Meadows alongside us? It's a project that's being coordinated by Tom and we enjoyed hearing about the latest developments in the nature reserve as we all ran down from The Hive. The newest residents are Shetland Cattle that will be used for controlled grazing as long as they can be convinced to stay in the right place!

Our job for this evening was to give some tiny saplings a helping hand. Hundreds of trees were planted last winter and they now needed space to grow. We all sat pulling up undergrowth around each one then gently laying it back around the base, which Tom explaind helps in 3 (tree?) ways: It reduces the competition for nutrients and light The dead grass turns to mulch to help feed the sapling The mulch helps to hold moisture near to the sapling. A simple but very effective way to make sure this patch of rough grass will one day be a beautiful copse.

I'm not sure how many trees we worked on for but there are hundreds left to be sorted out so we will definately be needed again. I don't think any of us will mind given how pleasant an evening it was.

On the hottest day ever recorded in May the thought of a task by the river sounded appealing. Perhaps we could carry out a swimming litter pick? Unfortunately the task was very much land based but slightly unusual. Marilyn from the Swan Food Project had been in touch to ask if we could help collect silt from some steps down by the river off Hylton Road so that they could then take it down to the Swan Sanctuary to help rebuild the river bank. A classic case of removing something that wasn't wanted in one place and making use of it where it was very much needed. Four intrepid GoodGymers turned up for the task and. after a short run from the Hive met Marilyn and began digging. In just 20 minutes we'd filled 14 sacks with over a quarter of a ton of silt! We loaded up Marilyn's car to the limit of it's suspension and then had a nice walk down to the Swan Sanctuary. Nice apart from the last few sacks and all the tools weighing us down! All good strength training though folks!
Once we'd unloaded at the other end Marilyn gave us an overview of the Swan Food Project while we watched the beautiful swans with the Cathedral bathed in evening sunlight behind. She told us that we'd saved at least 2 hours of work for the usual volunteer team who could now concentrate on using the material to repair the bank, A swan-tastic evening's work!