On a lovely July evening, eight GoodGymers met to take a trip to Paradise....

Our job for the evening was at Paradise Cooperative Garden, a piece of waste land that has been totally transformed into an incredible garden complete with flower beds, polytunnels, bee hives, learning spaces and one huge yurt. We were really happy to welcome Nick along to his very first session - give him a cheer!

As we were doing our warm up, in recognition of Independence Day in the US, we each took turns in naming US states as we went round the group. I think we did a pretty good job-even getting Alaska in there!

It was a 2.5 km run to the gardens, during which we discovered it was deceptively warm. We soon arrived to find several padlocks to negotiate. Turns out I would be a rubbish burglar, because despite having the codes I could not crack them and had to rely on other, more capable people in the group to get us in!

The three jobs were composting, spreading wood chip and sorting out the inside of the yurt, so we quickly divided into groups and got stuck in. While Catherine and Kelly began transforming the yurt, Jordan and Nick started the very labour intensive job in the compost, and Viviana, Alice and Ali got very inventive with trugs and other utensils to get that wood chip spread. It's amazing what you all achieved in 45 minutes, and it will make a big difference to the Paradise team.

A thankfully slightly more downhill run back to base and we finished the night with stretches and a cool down. This week there is lots going on, from our Friday lunchtime session at a local homeless centre, to a soon-to-be-scheduled mission at a nearby school (watch this space!), to next Monday's new task in Battersea Park at the beautiful Thrive garden. Well done everybody - have a happy week!