Four GoodGym runners, Amy, Jack, Jordan and Sara, made an early morning start to meet at the beautiful Widbrook common, where we were greeted by the Friends of Maidenhead Waterways team. After tooling up and squeezing into some waders, two teams split up to tackle separate parts of the stream. Jordan represented GoodGym on the west side, while Amy, Jack and Sara trundled along laden with tools alongside Alisdair, Mel and Ted.

We started work about 100 yards from the road, clearing the river of many, many reeds and other foliage which I lack the botanical knowledge to name. Basically a load of muddy, green stuff! Rakes and telescopic poles were in order to clear as much as we could from the bank, with Amy and Jack being the designated ‘waders’ for pulling up reeds and reaching the far bank! Amy showed an impressive determination to tackle the ‘root’ of the problem by pulling reeds up at the base, Jack managed to avoid getting soaked into his wader despite coming inches from disaster on multiple occasions, and Sara must now hold the world record for reeds raked out of a river over a 2 hour period!

Friends of Maidenhead Waterways very kindly supplied us with coffee and penguin biscuits, which were very happily received! Eventually we had to call time on our muddy misadventure, although Amy took more convincing to get out of the river than anticipated! A fantastic morning that got us immersed (quite literally) in nature. We may feel a bit sore in the morning, but the satisfaction of seeing the river section cleared and flow freely will definitely bring us back again!