In the beginning . . .

. . . there was a great deal of Japanese Knotweed and Himalayan Balsam along the banks of the Black Lynn Burn, a short watercourse of less than a couple of miles from boggy field to the sea.

This was the first project for 'Keep Oban Beautiful' and as bad backs were among the ailments suffered by two or three of our committee, we decided to cut the seed heads off and only pull the stems up if we had enough people.

In spite of all the publicity and promises to attend of quite a few of our Facebook followers there were only four of us committee members plus a very kind neighbour of mine who offered to come along. We were given six new 1 tonne bags by Homebase to collect up the balsam and promised another six from Buildbase, who showed me on Friday where they would leave them for me at closing time on Saturday as they're not open on Sunday. Unfortunately they forgot to put them out so we had a shorter day than expected! The two lads from Argyll Knotweed came along and began injecting the knotweed so that's a start on that too!

Nevertheless we made a good start and will be back! Pity about the rain!