It was a soggy morning in Newcastle today, but four brave souls faced the elements and met Mike for our tri-weekly Sunday Newcastle Parks mission. This time, it was to City Stadium in Newcastle, rather than the usual Harbottle Park. From now on, we will rotate between the two parks on Sunday - come rain, shine or snow!

I was first to arrive and was shortly followed by Andrew, who achieved another double mission streak this weekend. We got to work 'crowning' the forest area, making sure that lower trees and branches were cut or sawn from below head height, so that the area would be clear to see through. This helps to stop 'unwanted visitors' which can lead to a build up of litter or crimes - generally, it makes it a safer place to be!

Soon Rachel and Abi turned up (we can forgive Rachel being a bit late since she'd already clocked up a long run and junior parkrun volunteering, though Abi said she's just been in bed so had no excuse!) Both got stuck in to clearing brambles and undergrowth, as Andrew and I had already claimed the saws, and in a little over an hour the place was looking top-knotch.

As always, we stopped for a brief tea and biscuit break and learned some more fun facts from Mike such as how wildflower meadows aren't really 'natural', since they only grew after land had been over-cultivated by farming as they were hardier species. I also learned that vegetarians still love a Sunday dinner, but just minus the meat... hmmm...

Then, saying goodbye to Rachel as she headed to one of her other activities, we began he next task of cutting down some large ash tress to trade for willow. The willow would then be used to make broomsticks for an upcoming Halloween event!

We carefully sawed notches into the trunks to make them fall correctly, though since it was very densely populated with trees, most of them just got stuck amongst other branches anyway. We got a good truck load of straight ash, though, and I'm looking forward to seeing these broomsticks that will come from the trade off!

Very soggy but satisfied with a job well done, we loaded up the timber into the flat bed and added the top branches to our large pile for the chipper.

Tomorrow's mission if you'd like to get involved is a return to Elliot House.