On Sunday 20th May Flora invited a group of us to her new 'allotment'
There was a lot to be done to clear the area for her to put in a shed on stilts as this allotment tends to flood a lot.

Lucy, Jo, Catherine, Martha, Ian and Karina came to lend her a hand. By lunch time not only was the area cleared and ready to be measured up and levelled for a new shed, Martha managed to sieve the wonderfully rich soil into a raised bed that was now ready for planting up and Ian made a path out of the paving stones

Yesterday, Trish, Steve, Mark, Michael and Karina went for a couple of hours to Simon's garden to start the clearing process. Trish got stuck in and started weeding and shaping the flower bed, whilst Michael and Mark cleared and sorted all the wood. Steve used a great saw to cut the wood to perfect size for Simon's wood burning stove. Michael had taken a couple of hours out of his A-level study time and enjoyed a bit of physical excercise. He has now earned some gems to pay Lisa and Nazlee for their biology and chemistry help.
It was a lovely sunny morning spent with friends helping another friend; a great way to improve overall happiness and Well-being.

The fun bit is, today I spent another couple of hours with more lovely and kind people who all want to do something back for Simon who has helped most of us out in times of emergency.

Today, Steve, John, Andrew, Patrick, Kate, Monique, Flora, Bridget, Diane, Julie and I gave 2 hours of our time to transform Simon's garden. It was an explosion of activity, chatter and laughter. We are so lucky to have found so many wonderful and caring friends living in close vicinity of each other. Now we have earned the gems, let's spend them and give others the opportunity to shine as well! I hope Simon has time and energy to fit an outside tap for us, and so the circle starts again.

After a couple of years of generous giving, Simon our star plumber, is giving us a chance to shine and help him with his garden improvements.
On Saturday 4th June from about 10am he is looking for a group gardening/ manual work session. If you would like a work out, meet some others from the SE and could spare a few hours of your time, please let me know. Naturally ample amounts of tea and cake will be provided!!

This is a list of what they would like some help with:

1. Clear building debris into skip
2. Weed all flower beds and shape them

3. Chop mountain of wood for wood burner ( i have a saw for this)

4. Build vegetable beds from timber ( timber and tools i have but not much know-how)
5. Clear mound of earth into veg-beds or into skip
6. Prune large and small trees and clear to skip
7. Advice on anything else to make garden look lovely.

They have some tools but if people could bring the odd thing then that would be great.
Hopefully we will have good weather and a fun day.

Today we had our first group activity of the new year.
Digging up more than 1/4 of the allotment in 1 hour!
It shows that many hands make light(er) work.

Nicola, Martha, Trish and Monika, all members of the Shared Garden and some are also members of the Skills exchange, paid either a gem or made some lovely drinks and cakes to treat the Skills Exchange members who came to work for an hour.

Paul and Nicola, Tina with Oscar and Louis, Diane, Ian, Zena, Dave, James, John and Trish came to dig up the turf in preparation for the pototoes that will be planted in March.

I organised the group dig and earned my gems by baking bread and making tonnes of marmalade, and gave some eggs and a lemon drizzle to Simon and Kathy, Hope you all liked it. I was thrilled with the end result.

It was a lovely morning getting so many people to work to gether, have a work out and had 2 people join up as friends of the shared garden.

We finished off with a chat, lovely cakes provided by Nicola and Monika and some hot drinks brought by Nicola and Trish.

Apart from some ripped jeans, a few hawthornes and a big blister, we seem to have come out
unscathed, fitter, a gem richer and met up with wonderful friends. A great way to spend an hour together!

After a frosty start of the day, the afternoon was blisfully sunny.

At 1.15 a knock on the door and Trish was ready for action, then a minute later, armed with a bag of empty green bottles Christa appeared. We were off for a couple of hours of gardening at Catherines.

On arrival at the Mears family, Christa handed over her bottles for Catherine's glass craft and by 1.30 we were digging for Britain. Today was going to be the day that we would finish sorting out the garden. Over the last few months Thomas, Michael, Catherine D, Catherine M, Maureen, Christa, Trish, Mike and myself have turned it into a very respectable border although I say it my self!

If anyone wants their garden looking at and you want a reference be sure to contact Catherine and Mike.

Thanks for giving us the opportunity to do this group activity, it has been fun and worth while.

I'll soon be spending my gem on a back massage I guess.

Michael received his fantastic blind made by Dianne, so he needed to earn 2 gems

Thomas is in need for someone to have a look at his PC so he needs some gems and I had a very relaxing facial from Clara.

All in all, after having used up quite a few Gems, it was now time to earn some again.

The three of us set off on a sunny Friday morning to spend a few hours tidying Catherines' garden. The boys deadheaded the roses, dug out the self set trees and brambles and tidied up the flower bed. I spent some time, tidying up the patio, and helping the boys.

Matthew, Mike's and Catherine's son, became inspired and mowed the lawn and joined in too.

Thomas even found a newt in the flower bed (see image below)

After 2 hours of work, the place looked like a picture... and it was time for some squash and a biscuits.

Not only did we earn 6 gems, we made a new friend, spent some time together, saw a newt and felt generally proud of the work we had done for Mike and Catherine.

Thank you for giving us a chance to help you out.

Thomas, Michael and Karina