We arrived at West Bank Park for what we thought was finding holes and helping to fix a leaky pond liner but it was fixing a leaky pond liner AND a bonus task: creating a barrier made of coppiced wood and cuttings to prevent dogs from getting into the dog-free orchard.

Mel, Nikki and I started on the pond. We had to carefully remove buckets of water from the pond (and by carefully I mean, without falling in the pond) and check each bucket for critters before emptying them on the orchard borders.

I've got a pond skater! Does that count as a critter? - Mel

We needed to lower the water level by around 3-4 inches to expose as much pond liner as possible and see if we could see where the leak was coming from.

I've found a hole!!

We exposed one large slit which could indeed be responsible for all the leaking. We had a full visual investigation of the rest of the liner which was all intact, so that was definitely the culprit.

Ed, Mitch and Christine had made an amazing foundation to the woody barrier. Using coppiced hazel and various branches and bits of wood from a huge pile, they'd blocked several holes between the trees which sneaky pooches had been using to get into the orchard. The rest of us came along to help fill every teeny gap by weaving in branches and twigs, whilst Christine grabbed a litter picker and cleared the whole area of rubbish too.

Job done!