Ock River, Saturday 15th July 2023

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 This weeks' blog was written by Eleanor D

It was a blustery day when eleven Green Gymmers assembled to work on the Ock Path. It was raining at first, but the clouds soon blew away.

The tasks were litter picking, pulling up Himalayan Balsam and cutting back vegetation from part of the path to New Cut Mill, which had become very overgrown.

Much of the Himalayan Balsam was in the wooded area and quite a bit of sawing and slashing was needed to get to it. Sally and Barbara set to work with their scythes, widening the path and the litter pickers set off in the other direction with their sticks and bags.

By break time the wind had got up, as predicted by the Met Office and we felt slightly nervous sitting under the trees. We had brought some hard hats, but nobody took advantage of them.

After the break we got back to work, and Philip and James found a way across to the other side of the ditch to attack some balsam there.

The path was now much more passable and two big sacks of rubbish and two of recyclables had been collected, plus a very broken umbrella. 

We were quite glad to finish and get away from the trees as the strong winds continued.


Sally and Barbara scything to widen the path.

Himalayan Balsam

Tea Break


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