Monday: check. Brilliant turnout: check. Great task: check. Dog at GoodGym: check. Every box for a perfect start to the week was checked as we met for a marvellous Monday at Stepney Bank Stables.

A great group tonight for the session helping our hosts Stepney Bank Stables with a clear-up job to get the top stables spick and span ahead of Saturday’s Ouseburn festival where visitors are able to take a tour. Stepney Bank Stables is a fabulous community project and if you’ve never been make sure to pop in on Saturday if you can.

It was great to see Dan and Ellie back for their second task in three days as we don’t get to see them for months at a time. We also welcomed back Matt who did his first ever GG task at the weekend. Damu arrived in a celebratory mood tonight too with a pint in hand from The Cluny! That’s a good way to enhance GoodGym performance I’m sure.

Lots of elbow grease was required for the task this evening: brushing, scraping and flicking being three key actions for effective cobble cleaning. None of this is glamorous (apart from perhaps using a leaf blower) and Louise also got stuck into some heavy duty cobweb clearing despite a dodgy knee. Best of all, Dan’s wheelbarrow skills were required- always a happy sight. You’ll also see from the photos Ellie had the very impawtant job of keeping Stepney Bank Stables resident Good Boy Scout company for much of the evening.

Before long 45 minutes had passed and the yard looked sparkling - check out the before and after photos!

With a very squeezed amount of time we headed back for a team challenge to find and photograph three things using whichever strategy they saw fit: something that makes you smile, a living creature or insect and three street name signs. There were only five seconds in it at the end so it was pretty much a draw in my eyes.

Thanks everyone, a really positive start to the week.

There was a fantastic turn out this morning for a gardening task with Urban Green in Exhibition Park. Ranger Rhian had two large flowerbeds near Wylam brewery that needed weeding ready for some new plants.

We split in to two groups and quickly began to tackle the weeds. Liz, Debbie, Sam and I attacked the thistles and weeds. Red stalks out, wood stalks stay!

Louise, Dan, Ellie, Tom and newcomer Matt took on the bigger bed supervised by one of the resident swans.

The two hours flew by and the flower beds looked fantastic. Check out the pictures to see the difference.

The morning ended with an impromptu social in Urban Green Cafe.

Summer is a tricky time to organise volunteers so it was brilliant to have a great turn out today!

We completed a variety of roles between us. I was run director, Louise, Dan and Ellie were barcode scanning, Aimee handed out finish tokens, Michael was a marshal and finally, Lucy was tail walking.

We had a really enjoyable morning, and there were 75 finishers, and 21 personal bests which is impressive!

Myself, Aimee and Lucy went to the cafe afterwards, and enjoyed a cuppa and delicious cheese scones!

Join us tomorrow evening as we lend a hand at Recyke Y' Bike.

(Thanks to Louise for the pun!)