11 of us went to help the Poppy Road Poppy project to rake up their sythings. Despite an initial delay waiting for most of the tools to arrive we got started clearing the hay with a combination of a couple of rakes and hands. Once the rest of the tools did arrive we made quicker progress, clearing most of the cuttings by the end of the task. The pitchforks proved tricky to keep the hay on to transport it. Max tried a range of techniques and he settled on a twisting method. Steve passed by on his way home from work and added in as an extra helper. An added bonus was finding lots of grasshoppers and a beautiful spotted moth (and being close to the Fox pub of course where we decanted to once we were finished.)

The task got off to a slow start with 20 mins of raking by hand due to a mix up leading to late arrival of the tools. After renaming the task "We thought we'd be raking it in" we finally were able to use rakes rather than our fingers. After another hour we'd managed to rake and clear the majority of the sything cuttings. Nikki then showed her dedication by running off to do solo hill reps having failed to get anyone else to join her.

Another scything and taking challenge awaited us as we took on the wildflower meadow next to the CPP site in Holgate.

Brand new Sam came to join us for his first ever good deed and got straight to it, filling bags of very spiky grass with the highly enthusiastic young local resident, Charlotte (a future GoodGymer, we are sure!)

There were of lot of bitey bugs and sharp plant material in this particular meadow.

Is contracting dengue fever in the risk assessment?? Simon

Once we'd done as much as we could, half of us headed down to the Fox to celebrate an afternoon of good. I raced Mitch (who was in his car), he won.

I did have to break the speed limit though... Mitch