Ashley and Pete were joined by Pianofire at the church. This time we were tasked with cleaning up and leveling some of the graves which had accumulated inches of dirt over the years. Armed only with shovels, a wheelbarrow and a sunny disposition we set about our mission. Having negotiated several ants nests, numerous wheelbarrow dumpings and a few pieces of rocky road cake, we surveyed out good work and were pleased with the results.

2 people Ashley and Pete met at the Church for another round of maintenance. 2 large tree branches were cut up, 2 trees were crown lifted, 2 graves were cleared of ivy and blackberries and 2 hippo bags were filled. Another great late morning task at the Church with plenty of sunshine and chat.

Where on a grey Tuesday evening can you have debate and discussion around Greek philosophy, gay history, the stock exchange, the Euro’s, Derwent Reservoir and the 1977 Silver Jubilee?

Goodgym Derby that's where!!!!!!

Ashley and Pete met up with David to prune a large Yew tree, and the topics for discussion during the task were varied and generally totally unrelated!

Great company on a night I think we all learnt something 🧐. Feel free to join our debating group on the next task 😄.

Naomi and Pete turned up for the task far too early and had to sit around and make small talk before Ashley arrived and the task was able to start. David, as ever, was most gracious and plied us with hot drinks before the task. We set about probing the ground with a screwdriver, trying to find hidden grave slates. Once 4 were found we set about digging down through the years of accumulated dirt to uncover the slates, some of which might not have been seen for over a hundred years. Pete managed to uncover 2, but that was only because his were more shallow, compared to Ashley's Herculean effort for his that were so deep, a complex pulley and ladder system had to be set up. Another great task at the Church on a beautiful summer's evening.

Ashley and Pete joined David once again at the church. This time for a spot of tree felling and boarder clearing. Pete set about clearing the boarder while Ashley tackled sawing down a dead part of a tree. After Ashley got tired of sawing (about 5 minutes), Pete stepped in to finish the Job, nice one. The boarder was cleared and everyone enjoyed some homemade blueberry muffins - thanks David!

Ashley and Mandy met the regular volunteer group to do some pruning and tidying up of the trees. A new term was learned, "Crown Lifting" whereby the low handing branches are removed to raise the crowns base. It's a fancy way of saying we hacked at everything we could reach and stuffed it in a bag. Much fun was had while we worked, talking about running, training, falling off cliffs etc.