The one with the cones, the caddis and the cook book…

On a grey September Sunday, our enthusiastic band of volunteers descended on the Wandle where it runs in a deep channel alongside Autumn Close in Merton – joining the Friends of Garfield Recreation Ground who were clearly relishing the chance to get stuck into their local stretch of river.

Right under the footbridge, a scooter opened the scoreline, and Rigby volunteered to wheel it to the dumping site…

… while the rest of us worked our way upstream into a wonderful jungle of fallen willow sweepers: Large Woody Debris adding much-needed habitat to this stretch of river:

Maybe it was the interesting currents these branches created… but when we retrieved most of a nearby cross-training machine, its one remaining pedal housed a horde of pollution-sensitive caseless caddis, at least one per compartment (so we carefully detached the pedal and put it back again!)

Coffee time saw the launch of the new Wandle Trust cook book, with special signings from the authors, Sally and Jo…

Back on the bankside, girl power continued as Ann, Yolanda, Sarah, Abi and Erica showed a waterlogged carpet no mercy:

For about half a second, Toby hoped he’d found a secret wireless broadband hotspot at the North Road bridge…

 … but to no avail, and the laptop joined our largest-ever haul of traffic cones (24 of ’em) …

 … while everyone in our final team photo agreed that this had probably been a far better workout than anything available in the gym on the other side of the fence!

Thanks to all our volunteers: Abi, Andy, Ann, Ben, Forrest, Helen, Ian, James, Jane, Jo, Kevin, Mike, Paul, Peter, Rigby, Rory, Sally, Sarah, Steven, Sue, Theo, Toby and Yolanda… and of course to Merton Council for clearing away all the rubbish for us afterwards!