Saturday morning we joined Marilyn at the community garden. Larisa & Marie-Noelle helped move the heavy unwanted door to the collection point. Marilyn then set the 4 hens free to roam around and peck at the grass in search of fresh food. We shovelled to wheelbarrowed compost into large bags. The friendly flock joined us snapping worms from under our shovels. Rachel & Catherine smartened up the grassy path in the vegetables area, trimming and raking the cut weeds. On our way out we grabbed a lovely scented bouquet of herbs.

This week Emma, Jade, Jorge, Rachel and Dave met at the Quaker Centre to start their group run. A half lap of Fairfield Park and up the hill to Surbiton Library – the hill never seems to get any easier but Strava tells me that my time is getting quicker so the training is paying off!

We met up with Jana, Tom, Larissa, Laurel and Marie-Noelle at Surbiton Library, did a round of introductions and got straight to it. Our plan for this evening was to remove yet more ivy but on the other side of the path and have a general tackle of the weeds that had started to grow round the building. Glendale had kindly brought us some more plants so we could plant them in the gaps that we had created from removing the ivy.

The hour passed quickly – lots of work, lots of laughs. No broken spades this week as we had a mattox to mash up the thick ivy roots which made their removal so much easier. We finished up within the hour and said our goodbyes to some of the group and the rest of us went to the Albion for our monthly social.

A big welcome to Larissa who made it out on her second task tonight. Lovely to meet you – thank you for all your hard work. See you all soon!