A lovely sunny Saturday morning saw several of us set off from Mud Dock at “Dave Pace”, allowing Liam to catch us up as we approached Novers Steps at the Northern Slopes where we met up with some other GoodGymers along with Julia and Les of the Northern Slopes Initiative to continue clearing the vegetation and litter from near to the steps to allow them more space to plant some trees.

Armed with an array of tools from loppers, shears, slashers, Austrian Scythes and a new tool - a tree popper which Chris (who else) made a bee line for - most of the gang spent an hour cutting back grass and brambles, whilst the remainder took up litter pickers to clear up lots of cans, bottles, packets and wrappers plus an old umbrella.

By the time our hour was up, Les reckoned we’d cleared enough space to plant a couple of trees and Chris had fallen in love with the tree popper!

After drinks and biscuits a larger group ran back to Mud Dock, satisfied with our work and enjoying the respite from the recent wind and rain.

it was great to have new runners Lexi and Jacob along for the first time who both got really stuck in to the task.

Popper job!