There was an Abundance of volunteers this Wednesday lunchtime to harvest apples with Friends of Whirlowbrook Park, and thank goodness, because what a crop!

We met Nicola and other "friends of" at the entrance to the park and were led to the recently unearthed orchard, where there were 5 or so apple trees that had been hidden and not harvested for an estimated 30 years, plus lots of newly planted baby fruit trees.

Celine kicked things off with a wassail, blessing the trees with a verse, some apple cider vinegar and toast(!)

We then set to the usual work of clearing windfalls, getting in with telescopic pickers and then the fun of shaking the trees and catching fruit with a big tarpaulin. Yoseph was our intrepid tree-climber today, taking on the branch shaking from the top.

The bumper crop was quality control sorted into firsts, seconds and thirds. Most of the thirds were left for nature and, after we took as many as we wanted, the firsts and seconds will be distributed to good causes.

On a quiet and dry evening a team of goodgymmers ran up the hill - up and up all the way to the very top, but the views are as breathtaking as the climb up.

Garden angel Angela welcomed us to the school garden and laid out the tasks in store for us fir this autumn themed session:

• Sawing down dead conifers at the bottom of the garden
• bringing up the trunks and branches to the top
• hammering down stakes between which a dead hedge would be built at a later stage as a cosy home for wildlife

In no time, we had split into 2 teams, sawing away, wheeling offcuts and branches, hammering and bashing away all under a bright half moon.

Shout out to our hardworking crew tonight:

Lumberjack Rachel, scourge of the dead trees, joined by parent volunteer Rachel - yes 2 Rachels! Dead conifers beware! Wheelie good wheelbarrow driver Cat; Stake rhythm bashers Celine & Yvette; Masters of the hammers James and Yoseph; and recording the action and encouraging the team Annie still recovering from hip and elbow injuries - top marks for making it out tonight!

In under half an hour, we had cleared the dead trees and staked in the soon to be hedge.

We concluded all this sawing, wheeling and hammering actions with a gorgeous green tomato cake baked by Angela! Delishious!!!!

We then said our goodbyes to Angela and Rachel, promised to come back soon and rolled down the hill, a lot quicker than on the way up. Until next time for a winter inspired session!

Tonight we were off once again to meet Karen and her Pitsmoor Pickers crew. A new member had decided to come along for the ride too, make sure to giveYoseph a cheer!

We headed out from the Showroom on a relatively short run up to the meeting spot from where the evening's litter picking was to commence. Waiting for us and raring to go were Karen's team of 5 litterpickers. There were some new faces and some familiar to us. Bags, litter-pickers and hoops were distributed amongst us and then a plan of action was quickly devised. We would walk to the top of the Rock Street where there was a rubbish hot-spot, then make our way back down the road, picking on the wing. Annie kindly offered to keep an extra bag on her so that we could all put any cans that we found in it to later be recycled by Karen for cash to go into the litterpicking kitty. The area, thankfully, was not as bad as we were expecting; maybe lots of the rubbish that was on the hill has been washed down the road into the river? Hopefully people have just been keeping the place clean!

After a solid 45 minutes of refuse relocation we gathered up all of the filled bags and posed with them for the obligatory group picture with full bags. Following this we said our goodbyes to the Pitsmoor people and trundled off back down the hill to the Showroom. There we stretched off the key muscles used in the evening's efforts and popped inside for a refreshing (if expensive) drink.

On a rainy stormy night, I was grateful for an indoor task! The Team at Common Thread opened their doors and we busied ourselves sorting through the latest clothes donations in readiness for the next clothes swap.

There were some true gems and of course we couldn't help but sporting the latest autumn/winter 25-26 trends! You saw them here first!

Come and pick yourself a bargain at the clothes swap on Saturday 4 October (1-4pm, Union street)!

It is the fruity season! after picking 200 kilos of Worcester Pearmain apples with the lovely folks at Abundance on Sunday, we joined forces with Abundance again and moved on to a pear tree which was cropping one month earlier than usual!

We first picked the windfalls before grabbing the pickers to collect the fruit higher up the tree, a "fruitstrating" task as the pears were eluding our efforts.

But resistance is "fruitile" and we managed to save a total of 12kg, with a crate of the best being donated to Broomhall community centre who host a community meal every Wednesday.

A "pearfect" way to use the produce!

Goodgymmers Annie, Ines, Tim and Celine met up with national cycke network champions Sustrans Craig, Gerry, William and John to attack super hot grot spot at the corner of maltreated Maltravers road and Cricket Inn.

We bagged up an incredible amount of rubbish in no time at all - many hands holding litterpickers make light work!