Wednesday 10th July
Report written by David Mansfield
This week's group run/walk had two tasks. Runners were sent off to take on the long distance task, painting the hand rail at Holy Trinity church. Walkers took a more sedate journey to the Riverside meadow, hunting for invasive plant species.
Runners were met by William at the church who got the team set up with paint and brushes. Before too long the hand rail leading up to the church was green and so were many of the painters fingers!
Meanwhile over at the Riverside meadow, the efforts of previous years in pulling out the invasive canadian Goldenrod plants had paid off hugely, there was hardly any to be seen, native plants had regained their territory here. After a bit of hunting some young shoots of Goldenrod were found springing up from the roots left behind after a pulling session a few weeks ago. These were pulled up to stop them taking hold again and then a couple of small patches of tall goldenrod about to flower were spotted in the long grass.
Checking further along the river a lone stem of Himalayan Balsam was found and removed before it went to seed.
Calling victory in the battle for native wildlife and painting railings, we all headed off home quickly to catch the second half of England's Victory over the Netherlands 😄🏴⚽🥅🇳🇱🥲