Lest we forget. They shall never grow old.

A thank you to Rev Bob Henderson, Chaplain to the Forces, for a moving and thoughtful memorial service this morning. It was lovely to see such good attendance with everyone paying their respects. Ray Donnelly laid a wreath on behalf of LCC and looked impeccable doing so.

Out with some of the crew and one of our favourite Park Officers, Andy. Planted up another big section of the banking with daffodils and added some more by the tunnel. Bring on spring! 🌷🌼🌸🌺🌹🌷

Lovely start to the day in the park this morning. Lovely light and long shadows.

Amazing turnout for the inaugural Hailes Quarry Junior Parkrun! 83 young runners! 🤩 Brilliant support from Parkrun & their team, our volunteers & run directors. Special guest volunteer @drscottarthurmp.bsky.social had the honour of counting down to start the run. 🙏🏻

Out with the team doing a bit of tidying and weeding. Plants responding well after the winds and a decent watering from the canal the other night. Lots of insects and butterflies making good use of the wildflowers.

It certainly looks like it along the Water of Leith and around the city’s parks and gardens. It’s heat stress. Leaves falling, berries ripe, but it's hot. Is autumn coming early? www.bbc.com/news/article...

Giving our new planting zone some attention today. Starting to look really good now as the wildflowers and other plants start to mature. 🌹🌼💐🌼🌺🌷A very nice welcome to our area.

📢 Calling school & community groups! Only 27 days to apply for a pack of FREE TREES (for delivery in Nov 2025). Choose from packs of 30, 105 or 420 native species. You need🌱 the grid ref of where you plan to plant & 🙋‍♂️ the permission of the legal landowner. Apply 👉

Friday joy Plantings at the side of Redhall Park @redhallpark.bsky.social They look glorious. They were started by 1 person, now with @agordonsalive.bsky.social and others. The selfless care & effort that has gone into giving this gift to the community brings me so much restorative joy. Thank you

Fly by of Ray’s top work looking lovely today. 🌹💐🌺🌷🥀🌼🪻z

Loads of ladybirds 🐞, different types of bees 🐝, hoverflies, wasps, and a host of other pollinators on all the wildflowers around the park at present. The knapweed flowers, hogweed seed heads, borage, and corn marigolds are popular with them.

The thistles are alive with ladybirds. In order of posting, my best guess as to which varieties. Sadly the first is a harlequin (boo hiss), a 2-spot, a 7-spot, another 2-spot but this one is black with 4 spots (adalia 2-punctata quadrimaculata) look I didn't make up the naming rules!

The wildflowers @redhallpark.bsky.social were absolutely buzzing today. Bees and hoverflies, as joyous a sound as any birdsong. Saw several varieties of ladybird, scroll down to see them

We gave our new planting area a bit of love today. Wildflowers and sunflowers starting to come into flower. 🌼 lots of buzzing insects, even a holly blue butterfly 🦋

Ray, Euan, Marion, and Alan out weeding, checking the wildflowers, new shrubs, and planting some new flowers and more sunflowers. Lots of bulbs and more plants to come. Will be a lovely welcome to our community.

The swans passing through in formation today. Always a joy to see. 🦢🦢🦢🦢🦢🦢🦢🦢🦢

Would open up a quick walking route to the park for the good folks of Hutchison and Chesser.

We recognise that splendid park. 👍

Think you smell garlic? Think again. Think it doesn't matter? Think again! @wolct.bsky.social #Edinburgh #biodiversity www.edinburghinquirer.co.uk/p/the-impost...

Great tip on hedgehog care 👌

Great place to sit and enjoy all the flowers we’re now planting to create a proper welcoming to Longstone. Great support from @redhallpark.bsky.social 👏

Grant Swan for the power tools & William Sturgeon for arranging with him, and Alan Gordon for securing the funds from @edinburghcouncil.bsky.social community grant fund.

Fantastic community effort on this little upgrade project. Marion Preez for having the idea, Ray Donnelly for cleaning and painting the plinth, Julian for building and fitting the bench top (couple of bits still to fit tomorrow)

Out litter picking with @rosssmckenzie.bsky.social , sanding the old millennium woods sign and getting the plinth sorted. 🙏🏻

More progress weeding, painting, and sanding the millennium woods sign. We’ll be fixing the bench top onto the plinth tomorrow. Also a litter pick at 1pm starting at the war memorial. All welcome. 👍

Still 4 places available on this Nordic walking technique course starting next week, if you happen to know of anyone in the community who would be keen 😊 It’s free and just requires a couple of forms to be able to join. All equipment provided. Contact [email protected] or call her on 07943530806

Only the 2 of us there today digging & painting the plinth. Slow progress, but we will get there. Plinth had its first coat of paint. Managed to weed a small patch of ground and have planted some Wild Flower seeds in this patch. Luckily we are able to fill the watering cans from the Canal.

Planting up the area next to the wayfinding sign by the canal. Got some lovely shrubs from Inch Nursery with some of the community grant. When it looks like raining we’ll get the wildflower seeds in. Painting the base of the wayfinding sign & then fixing a bench top to it as well.

Glad to say the bullfinches are doing well in #ColintonDell Edinburgh and in nearby @redhallpark.bsky.social Redhall park. Have seen them most days recently

We’ll be out planting up the area next to the canal on Sunday at 11am. We’ve got plants & lots of wildflower seed to sow if you fancy helping us. It’s going to look even more awesome this year. 😊 We’ll be giving the plinth a clean and a lick of paint in preparation for a new bench top too👌

Definitely hitting peak daffodil this week. The new ones up by the war memorial are a beautiful colour.

Approaching peak daffodil 🌼 in the park now. Only last years freshly planted ones are lagging behind up opposite the war memorial but they are not far away. Also some alliums in that section too. Get out and enjoy a lap of the park while it’s sunny.

Not quite peak daffodil yet, but the crocus are handling the baton over now.

Thanks to friend Euan and @longstonecc.bsky.social for ordering another batch of saplings to add to the park. Also thanks to Parks team for planting them. 🙏🏻

Hard work of the Parks teams and friends groups always pays off in Spring 👌

One of our drone pilot members was out flying his drone close to home today. Interesting to see different perspectives. Registered, certified, insured and tracked drone. 👍 Inglis Green Junction/1

Lots of the crocus bulbs we planted up by the war memorial and down by the play park starting to appear. A wee bit more ☀️ and they will look great.

Want to hear a bit more about our Community Council, what we’ve been up to, and how you can get involved? @edinreporter.bsky.social gave our secretary a friendly grilling. 🙏🏻

You can join your local Community Council if you are aged 16 or above. If you’re interested in how local government works it’s a great place to start & you can make sure young peoples issues are raised & their voices heard. We’d welcome that in Longstone CC. www.edinburgh.gov.uk/community-pl...

We recorded a ‘trailer’ with the excellent @edinreporter.bsky.social as well as a longer podcast today about our Community Council and area in advance of the elections. Everyone’s favourite subject, ‘POTHOLES!’ Instead of moaning we tried to improve matters locally. 👍

Do you care about your community? Get involved with your local community council! We’re looking for new members to join us. Help to influence important decisions about our community.Nominations are now open. Contact us to find out how to be nominated www.longstonecc.org.uk

Please don’t leave whole uncooked chickens in the park!

We have some great folk in our community. Thanks to Tam (Pops) and his son Lee for sweeping all the paths and planting some more trees they had propagated up near the memorial. 🫡

Learned today that these are crab apple trees the Parks team planted. A great choice.

Our pals up in Dovecot tell us that another 18 trees have been planted. Oak is certainly one of them. Fantastic!

Proper shift helping Ray get all the woodchip mulch spread. Going to be a lot of bulbs emerging soon and we”re going to planting new things too. Thanks to everyone who helped 🙏🏻 @longstonecc.bsky.social

We’re planning on shifting the woodchip to help Ray out on Sunday at noon. Anyone willing to help will be most welcome. 🙏🏻

One for the Daisy 🐕 fans. Bit of filth. Enjoying Redhall. @redhallpark.bsky.social