Eleven runners ran 7km to help the Malago Valley Conservation Group with their orchard at Manor Valley.

After a quick task briefing on the areas of bramble to be cleared we set to work. Task: further bramble clearance ready for the planting of new apple trees in 2020.

Art, Will, Paul, Julie, David H, Matthew and Shreena tackled one side, with Chris, Caroline, David G opening up a second front.

Talk of Christmas merryment gad and yet to come motivated everyone, and a phenomenal amount of effort soon had the task sorted. Pesky brambles were slashed and chopped, trimmings raked and a huge mound produced as the fruit of our efforts.

Well what can I say? Thirteen runners came and 2 tonnes of stone chippings were shifted from valley bottom up the hill ready for future volunteers to relay a woodland path. Epic!

Meeting at Mud Dock, the runners dodged the rain for the 3.5km run out to help the Malago Valley Conservation Group at Manor Valley Woods. After a quick briefing we set to work with buckets, shovels and wheelbarrows. Everyone chipped in and short work was made of the shifting - love it when a g-ravelble of people come together. Stone the wheelbar-rows we did it! After a short detour to scrump a few apples (no crab-gravels were found) we made our way back for a well deserved coffee.

Welcome to Laura who joined us for her first Goodgym run!

It was the hottest day of the year (so far!) and we were all delighted to be greeted by Sarah and a box full of cool and refreshing watermelon after running up from Mud Dock to the lush Manor Valley Woods!

After meeting Martin, who runs the local conservation effort, he gave us a little tour - demonstrating just how much the land had changed with the work all the volunteers over the years have been putting in. After transporting a bunch of slow worms over to help grow the wild ecosystem, the worms had thrived and formed many happy wormy families in recent months. We were lucky to see a parent and baby slow worm (and some rare orchids too)!

Fun fact: Slow worms are also known as deaf adders, blindworms and long-cripples!

Following our nature tour, we set to work clearing the nettles and overgrowth around the trails and paths so that visitors to the nature reserve could enjoy it all its glory.

This was also David's last GoodGym good deed (for now) as he is moving on to new adventures in Lisbon. We celebrated with one last team brunch back at Mud Dock after the task and gave him the card we'd all been secretly signing which he was super pleased to receive.

David's been a member of GoodGym since 2014 so we're super sad to see him go, but he promises to come back and visit (and we could always use an excuse for a sunny race weekend in Portugal!)

Twenty-one GoodGymmers - including a Birthday Boy and Girl - went to Manor Valley Woods to meet Martin for one of their work days. They've been reclaiming the old brickworks at the edge of the park from brambles with a plan to turn it into a wildflower meadow with an orchard. We've been out a couple times and it's lovely to see how much work has been done.

We helped out by digging up bramble roots, snipping back nettles, and David and Phil sawed up some pallets for signs. Tom got his hands on the Root Assassin and we got Raphael wielding a spade on his first group run.

This patch of land is a Slow Worm habitat and Martin and the others are cutting back brambles on the sunny slope to expand it so that more can be introduced. Slow Worms are a protected species, they are a rare legless lizard native to the UK and are coming out of hibernation now. We were able to peek at a few under their warming mats. You can read more about them here: https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/reptiles/slow-worm

We ran back to Mud Dock for some much appreciated birthday cake. Happy Birthday to Zdeni and David (thank you for baking)!

It was a lovely sunny day for a commish!

A group of us had decided to run unofficially from mud dock to the task as I'm not a run leader I could only pretend to lead.

Welcome to Kathryn and Tom

We were glad to have 2 newbies with us and I hope my slightly weird warm up didn't put you off!

We quickly arrived at Manor Woods Valley where we met Emma and Alison. Martin from Malago Valley Conservation Group told us about the interesting background of MWV and soon set us to work. Today's main task was BEATING, CHOPPING, HACKING and RAKING the brambles. KILL them!!

Martin always provides great tools *less the 1 that fell apart in Tom Hill's (too strong?) hands.. Today he gave us the ROOT ASSASSIN which myself, Chris and Tom Hill very much enjoyed using. You could just push it into the ground all around a horrible massive root and then just pull out the "main body" with ease. We definitely need these for more of the bramble tasks, it was fun and satisfying.

Everyone worked hard and managed to clear a big area of brambles. Nice one!

An hour later after a couple of photos we shot back to mud dock. Thanks everyone for a lovely morning.

Welcome today to new runners Kate and Bella who accompanied us along the Malago Greenway to meet Martin and his MVCG companions down at the secret orchard.

Once there, they joined a group tasked with planting some wildflower bulbs being sure to distribute them in a 'casual just as nature might have done' manner.

Most others worked to cut back any new brambles and make sure they can't get re-established while Chris and Patrick did some excellent lumberjack work on a couple of unruly elders.

Great to be back in the orchard and looking forward to many more visits in 2019! Thanks to Dave for the pun.