Today's mission saw 4 GoodGym Yorkies run to St Nicks to help saw down trees to encourage regrowth and thin out the woodland areas to allow more sunlight through the canopy. This allows plants lower down to grow providing a more diverse habitat for wildlife in the reserve.

Extra kudos to Maddie and Becky who managed to squeeze in a pre mission ParkRun too!

We started cautiously with Mel exlaiming she would only tackle trees thin enough to chop down with the loppers. However, we soon found our inner lumberjacks and we're taking on some pretty substantial trees! (Bonus - no one got squashed by falling trees in the process!)

Becky discovered that you could achieve some pretty nice stretches which acting as tree support - which was going well until Mel managed to stretch her bum into a bramble patch!

After a few hours work we had some pretty sizeable clearings and a lot of felled trees ready for use as fencing elsewhere in the reserve.

With the task complete, team timber headed back to the St Nicks centre for soup and snacks, stopping briefly to pose for a photo with some Vikings (as you do...)

Ellie declared the mission a success "We sawed down trees, met some Vikings, converted some Mormons to GoodGym and we still have all our limbs attached"

Then came my favourite quote of the day from 'the boss' Jonathan! "Just put the dirty bowls over here, there appear to be some Vikings in the kitchen"

A great mission accomplished in time for a return visit to St Nicks tomorrow!