I returned for a second week of Himalayan Balsam clearance at Handsworth Cemetery, being joined by Ryan on this occasion, who ran all the way here and back. It was just as satisfying this week, although there was the additional difficulty brought by encountering nettles and brambles as we went deeper into the area that had been overrun by the undesired plant. This was especially the case for Ryan as he was wearing shorts. We were joined by half a dozen extra volunteers and made fantastic progress in a couple of hours, almost removing all trace of the Balsam and clearing an area so big, it went further than the before picture from last week could even take in, I had to take an additional after photo to see where we had got to. Talking of pictures, I had worn my Goodgym sweater and posed for the pictures sporting it, while telling Ryan about the competition I had won it in. Josie told us that it will be an ongoing battle to eradicate the Balsam from the graveyard, possibly taking another three years of removal to get rid of it for good, and hopefully we'll be there to help achieve this goal.

What a satisfying task (especially for someone who loves graveyards) as I met up with Ben in Handsworth Cemetery on my walk home from work to help clear some Himalayan Balsam that had overgrown. Not quite as problematic as Japanese Knotweed but about as invasive, a large patch of the plant had sprung up in a section of the Cemetery, threatening to spread further and cover grave stones. A quick bit of training from Josie revealed how satisfying this task was going to be. The Balsam pulled easily from the ground no matter how big it had grown, and resembled a very weak kind of Bamboo. Then we had to snap the root at the end in order to make sure it wouldn't grow again. After a hard day at work, being able to do something that resembled throttling but without actual animal/people cruelty was just the tonic! It was also a great chance to catch up after an indistinctly long time since I had done a task with Ben. I'll be there again at the same task next week if you want to help us finish clearing up the Balsam.

Mike continued his amazing litter pick of the Number 11 Outer Circle route in Birmingham. In the morning, he began in Cotteridge where he had ended his Super Saturday, and was joined by Steven as he went from Selly Oak to Harborne. As you can see from the pictures, a lot of litter was collected along the way. I met up with Ben at City Hospital in the afternoon and we got straight to litter picking as we waited for Mike to get to us. It was just as well, as there was a ton of masks and other medical discards among the litter along the road, which was a bit of a wind tunnel from the bus stops outside the building. Taz came along to greet us before Mike arrived and we were granted a special Hi Viz for the occasion as we started to lag behind, picking lots of junk as we approached the Prison and went through Winson Green. We took a short cut so that we could meet up with Chloe in Handsworth. We stopped for the best of reasons, cake, to keep Mike going along the last leg to Erdington, where this 27 mile journey had begun on Saturday. We then picked along the road I live on, so I left them at the end of the road and the others went on to Perry Barr, and in Mike’s case, to the Finish Line in Erdington. What a remarkable task, taking in a whole city, meeting lots of emerging community groups who are taking ownership of the upkeep of their local environment. Hopefully we will have inspired many others to action as we were stopped many times along the way to ask what are group was or to be thanked by members of the public.

On a bright but breezy morning I met up with Amy in Erdington to join in with the epic litter pick organised by Mike, walking and picking around the number 11 Outer Circle route. This is the longest urban bus route in Europe and is 27 miles in total, which he is doing over 2 days at the weekend. We got our start point a little confused so missed him starting off, and he was having to go at quite a pace to get the route done on time, so we didn’t get to see him at all, though we did get to join in with our friends the Erdington Litter Busters. However, we did get to see Tahir as he brought some extra equipment, which helped control empty bags flying around in the wind so we could fill them with plenty of trash as we walked the first hour of the route. We left Mike to keep up the good work after filling up 3 bags between us. Later in the day, Annie joined in with him as he had made it all the way from the East of Birmingham round to the South, picking her way from Kings Heath to Cotteridge. So GoodGym were there for the beginning and the end of the day, but hats off indeed to Mike who was feeling every mile of the route and making a massive difference in many communities today.

Jonny and Jo completed a litter pick in Sutton park, filling two big bags full of rubbish, plus of course the brolly, hence the pun!

The next litter pick in the park will be Saturday 15th August :)

Four keen GoodGymer's completed a litter pick in the lovely Sutton Park. Plenty more bottles, cans, wrappers were found and this week we even found a flat football, hence the pun!

We walked from the town gate across to another car park at the other side of the park, before having a quick picture from Tousif, then we head back to our starting point.

There will be another litter pick in the park 2 weeks today so look out for that one!