Oh the weather outside is frightening...

The weather forecast was suitably frightening as Amy, Sara and Jess met with Alisdair and Dave from Maidenhead Waterways and their new volunteers Helen and Jenny on this Halloween morning. Grey clouds were shifting ominously across the sky and the wind was whistling through the trees...Alisdair looked a tiny bit like the grim reaper as he emerged from the boot of his car with various long handled sharp tools and proceeded to distribute our fancy dress costumes - waders, high vis vests, and long rubber gloves. Jess, Helen and Jenny began to fear they had signed up for a trick, but Amy and Sara (who had been here before) were grinning like jack-o-lanterns in anticipation of the watery treat in store.

As we set off along the Greenway with our rakes, loppers and saw, we resembled a band of stormtroopers (visualise murderous Nazi Sturmabteilung rather than the Star Wars ones). We diverted onto farmland, where we had permission to work, and as we set our bags down next to the first target area we were greeted by a few creepy spiders - an excellent omen for our mission!

Happy Halloweed!

Our job for the morning was to clear (Hallow)weeds and debris from a few points along Widbrook stream, enabling the water to flow freely into town, maintaining a suitable depth in the town centre channels right through to the fish pass and eel pass at Green Lane Weir.

Amy was first to head into the stream, joined soon after by Sara. They slid down through the nettles on their bottoms and aimed wellies first into the murky depths. As they reported back on 'what lies beneath' - they hoped that nothing too macabre would come bobbing up to the surface. They hauled weeds towards the bank, and Dave and Jenny expertly dragged them out of the water - far enough so they wouldn't slide back down, but close enough for any lurking beasties to creep back to their homes. After all, we wouldn't want to deprive any passing witches of the toe of frog or eye of newt they would be expecting to extract from the stream later.

Jess and Helen also worked as a great team taking turns to wade and rake. Our leader Alisdair also waded and raked as he directed us to the parts of the stream in need of attention (the haunted houses of the stream world, if you will).

Bubble bubble, toil and....paranormal balls!

The workout was tough but satisfying. We heaved and yanked great piles of vegetation to the banks, and could see the water flowing more freely with every patch of weed and rakeful of debris removed. As we worked however, it became clear that we had disturbed a graveyard... numerous tennis balls came bobbing out of their watery tombs. Amy enquired whether this was normal and Dave reported that this was most unusual...spooky... We imagine the ghosts of Cookham canines past have been roaming the fields at night looking for their lost toys. Perhaps now they can finally R.I.P.

A feast for Count Duckula

We paused for a snack mid-morning, and then headed to a different patch to tackle another demon: a terrifying build up of duckweed. Scientific name Lemnoideae , the RHS describes this weed as small, free-floating aquatic perennials that combine to form a green 'carpet' on the surface of the water, but to us it resembled a poisonous witches' brew. Its common name duckweed apparently comes from the fact that it is eaten by ducks. There was so much duckweed here that it was like a thick soup clogging the channel.

By now it was raining bats and frogs, but Amy and Sara were in a trance...

Wearing their long black gloves, they made slow, circular hand movements and cast their spell to banish great gloopy handfuls to the banks. They were rewarded with bubbles from the depths, and eventually the green stew began to move.

As we did our virtual high fives and carried the tools back to Alisdair's car, we could see the duckweed creeping and swirling downstream like an evil force exorcised from 'that bit by the bridge', and dispersing ominously into the darkness - perhaps to haunt us again next Halloween?

A spooktacular success

All in all it was another fangtastic Maidenhead Waterways adventure! We had a really ghoul-d time, we got lovely and mucky, and the hot showers at home afterwards felt spook-tacular. It was great to meet Helen and Jenny for the first time, and we are pleased to report that before Amy had even managed to wash the duckweed out of her hair, Helen had signed up as a GoodGym member (excellent selling skills Jess!). So we've sneakily added her to this community mission retrospectively and we can now say welcome to GoodGym Helen, and well done with your first good deed!

Witching you all a very happy Halloween...