After what feels like years (123 days) GoodGym H&F was back. Not in its usual format of a Tuesday evening group run, but GoodGym H&F nonetheless.

Ten of Hammersmith’s finest turned up to help Bernie at the Springvale Residents Association, a task the group have helped out many times before (and even have our own special display in the corner)!

Four or so months of neglect had left the usually smart looking gardens at the hall a little more overgrown than usual. Challenge accepted and Beth got the gang to work.

Jonny and Andrew took on the bushes at the back, pulling up 4 foot weeds and hacking away at the jungle that had made its home in the gardens. Sarah was in her element - it had bin a while but she was bag, and was happiest filling up black sacks with twigs and weeds and garden scraps. Jess and Biscuits scraped the paths and got cracking at the cracks, getting rid of the tufts in the pavements. Amy joined Chris in fencing. Not quite epees and foils, but attacking the ivy that had wound it’s way around most of the fences - and then died. They set off dismantling the leaves and unwinding vines.

Then Lucy and Ben turned up, having ‘brushed up’ on their gardening skills on a GG Hounslow task that morning. They got stuck in with the boys at the back, although Lucy quickly left Ben to it, and bailed (or should I say, snailed) thanks to some cheeky molluscs hiding the the grass.

Lucy shell-ped out Amy and Chris instead, where they were doing a vine job of clearing the fence. Amy had a request for Lucy to remove a stick that was stuck in the trellis. Not one to say no to a challenge, Lucy hacked and hammered away successfully (a bit like West Ham - C’mon you Hammers!) and wood not stop until the job was complete.

By this stage, Jonny was sweating away trying to get a stubborn tree out. We were all rooting for him to get it up! Luckily he had a good team to hand, and the problem that had them stumped came flying out of the earth. Bernie looked on, seriously impressed with the treemendous work at hand. The time had grown by, sorry, flown by, and the garden was looking a shell of a lot better. A quick water/haribo stop, and the GoodGymmers left - we could bear-ly wait to get to Brook Green for an ice cream and a group pic.

And as if we hadn’t had a sweet enough meet, Beth pulled out more celebratory treats - bakes to congratulate Biscuits on his 200th and Lucy on her 100th good deeds, which had both been achieved during lockdown. With both Biscuits and Cookie around, she had made a hybrid bookie? Kiss kit? Whatever it was, it was a good one! It was also a good one to be back in all our GoodGym Hammersmith and Fulham glory. Until next time...