Volunteering at Preston Parks

Happy afternoon blog followers and allow me to reveal a brand new week as Alex Ashworth perseveres with his voluntary pursuits.

Today was Monday which meant another trip to Preston Parks and with the capable, reassuring and encouraging hands of senior park ranger Mr. Steve Smith.

On arrival he gave a small package of seeds for me to plant or to pass on to other voluntary groups I am associated with. There were four varieties in total :- pakchoi, lettuce, spring onions and cress. It was a nice little treat for a Monday morning and I intend to put them to good use.

Once we'd dealt with the formalities ( how are you? how was your weekend?) We were off out doing what we do best on a humid if not a little chilly Monday morning. The weekly litter clearance and general inspection of the park.

Early into our travels we met some familiar faces that we have become acquainted with since we've been doing this work together, a man and his dog who is really good fun and likes to have a chat with us, he's also genuinely appreciative of the work we do on the park and believes it wouldn't get clean if it wasn't for our diligent efforts.

As Steve was dealing with several difficult phonecalls I made my way round the play area and did a good clean up round there only to be stopped in my tracks by Steve who alerted me to the fact that there was a much dire area of rubbish that needed our collaborative work to remove it.

I ceased my current litter clearance and made my way towards Steve,

we were both horrified by the state of what several individuals had created over a series of beers, a barbecue and other substances which is better not to mention. We both agreed that it was sad and pathetic that people are inclined to neglect their environment and be ignorant to ethical standards of cleanliness. We cleaned up the mess and Steve's decision to have a brew after was wise and I was in full agreement.

We had a ten minute coffee break which took us to approximately 11.45am. The final morning's task was to remove some carpet tiles from outside the pavilion base and into the football pavilion. We took a wheelbarrow each and deposited our share of the carpet tiles into the football pavilion.

At 12noon it was time to bid farewell once again. I took all my belongings and said to Steve I'll see you briefly on Wednesday as I'll be back in for Let's Grow Preston.

This is Alex Ashworth signing off for another productive morning with Preston Parks and the kind wisdom of work colleague Steve Smith.