A bright and pleasant morning saw a rather understrength team meet as planned at the Riverside Community Space (Bridge 8) for a session of bank reinforcing. But wait, there’s no raw materials! Oops, an admin error meant they hadn’t been delivered! Never mind, we all headed back to the Canal Centre in Hebron Road where there is always plenty to do.

John Grav, Chris M, Gordon and Lance continued building the last section of the canal-side walkway, laying mesh, sheeting and finally the last of the pile of scalpings from the car park heap. That job is well on the way to completion.

Moira trimmed back foliage overhanging the towpath near Pont John, and Alan cleared the path edge of weeds and mares tails. Sharon pulled the balsam she could reach, and slashed away those she couldn’t with a long pole-saw! A bit industrial, but very effective! Martin took a more gentle approach to weeding the big border.

John Gw refitted some ladder hooks on the workshop wall, useful for storing our very long drag rakes and other tooling.

Christina spoiled us with buttered scones, and fab coffee and walnut and chocolate and orange cakes for our elevenses – lush!

We finished up after coffee with a good sweep-up of the car park concrete area, which looks so much tidier and more open with the scaplings gone. We also removed a large and precarious-hanging branch above the path behind the boat basin – everyone was helping, so no photos sadly! In the end an unplanned morning turned out very well, with so much good work done by all