With what looked like a potential rainy Tuesday again, we were worried that we may not achieve our goal this week......

2 TASK TUESDAY

Michael, our resident weather man kept a watchful eye on the Met Office App and assured everyone that the rain would not be coming in until 20:00...

We met at our usual place and split into our two groups of runners and walkers, everyone was meeting at Cwtch Together tonight to begin with. The runners were the first to arrive, just in time to meet with Flo who had made their own way to the task to donate their old dolls for use at the charity play group.

That deserves an extra deed

Michael said Helo to Jon, who was meeting us tonight in place of our usual Sarah. We quickly got the tools out to help with the garden. Michael meandered around the grounds, before briefing Flo who was taking ownership of the task tonight at Cwtch. There were some brambles starting to come through, as well as some 'Lords & Ladies' (Arum maculatum) popping up so the strimmer was needed to remove these, especially the 'Lords & Ladies' before it goes to seed in Autumn and spreads anymore.

Once the walking group arrived, we split into two groups for the second task. We bid farewell to Emma, Emma, Flo and Neda who were going to take on the Cwtch task.

Heading over to the Grange Medical Practice were, Michael, Aimee, Emily and Llion. We were greeted by Chris from Grow Cardiff, we had been here just 2 weeks earlier (read all about that here). Tonight's call was to get the soil delivery into the raised beds...

Shovels at the ready

Straight to work, we were digging soil from a bag straight into the beds on one side, whilst emptying another into wheelbarrows on the opposite side. Some strange conversations as Michael suddenly burst into song with a rendition of the theme tune to Poddington Peas..'Why' I hear you ask.... we still don't know.

This was a great workout with some heavy lifting added in once the bags were empty enough to lift straight into the raised beds. A great day this week with two tasks completed (3 with Flo's donations), thanks to all for joining in.

Join us next week for some fence painting fun, sign up here

Due to circumstances out of our control our task for the evening had to cancel, and so we moved to the ever reliable litter pick. The weather was very changeable, and we had a yellow warning for rain and wind......quite a night for exercise.

We split into two groups, our walkers stayed in the City Centre and helped to clean it up, they even saw a duck or two. Who knew we had ducks in the City Centre....

The second group, the runners, made their way up to the alleys on Whitchurch road for a good clean. It was a nice run, followed by a walking litter pick, some interesting graffiti and items were seen. Unfortunately as we stopped for our group photo the rain started up again.

We ended extremely wet, but don't let that put you off coming back!

Tonight was our return to the Grow Cardiff project at the Grangetown Medical Centre, we hadn't been here for a year when the project first started. During this time, they had managed to secure some money to create a more accessible site, so we were welcomed with a brand new flooring and the start of the new beds.

We met Chris and had a brief chat about the time inbetween our visits, before getting to the list of jobs for the evening.

• Move slabs to the rear of the centre.
• Infill compost bins with green waste.
• Water the fruit trees / plants behind the medical centre.
• Litter pick around the centre.
• Move surplus building materials to the rear of the centre.
• Sort area under the Cherry Tree, level the soil,
• Remove rubble from borders.

A lot of work and what looked to be a great workout on a glorious sunny evening. No time to stand about, lets get to it!

Before we had even arranged the garden jobs, Jonathan and Neda were out litter picking in the sunshine. Gold Star to you both....⭐

Su and Imy were onto the borders, taking out any large stones and moving them to the large middle planter. Lucy was sweeping and cleaning, Adam (after breaking the rake) was on leveling duty with Dylan.

Darren and Andrew were with wheelbarrows, moving bricks, slabs and rubble from behind the polytunnel to behind the medical centre. Martin, took to the green waste compost area and filled it, then joining the wheelbarrow crew to build their very own Jenga stack.

It was a great evening helping and we certainly kept ourselves fit tonight. Well deserved food after the run....

Join us next week as we will be keeping with the Nature theme this month over at Cwtch Together.

Another Sunday with the Parkrun juniors, only this week in the Sunshine ☀️

Flo was on scanning, eager to get those times recorded. Michael, was learning new things with their first time on set up and take down.

Today was 147 runners, 18 first timers and 30 new PBs.

Join us next week, it's a great way to start your Sunday. Plus we go for a coffee and a chat afterwards.

On an absolute Beaut of a morning, full of sun and glory, a wonderful group of volunteers met to do good in the local park.

The community orchard is an exciting project, to create a space for nature, people and teaching. It will be a legacy to future generations.

The tasks today, a bit more than usual,

• fill the water barrels for the trees
• move the hazel and willow
• create a new dead hedge
• use tree trunk sections from the park arborists to create a barrier.
• drill holes in the barrier for solitary insects to rest
• for the kids, tie together sections of bamboo for bee Hotels and place in the previous dead hedge.

I don't know about you but I think that's enough for a volunteer session.

A good group as usual for this mission, and child friendly to boot. It was a great opportunity to explain to the younger ones how the bamboo would be used and what they could look out for on their return visits.

A great day in the sun, with more to come every month. See you soon.

"you run along and pick up the rubbish" This is what Nathan's daughter told him when they headed out for a cycle along the river. So that's what they did. Nathan plogged while his daughter spotted rubbish and weaver in and out of other bikes, dogs and joggers. By the time they reached the park they'd managed to collect a bag of rubbish and put a nice thermos flask and hat in a clear place should their owners come back looking for them.