Despite threatening to pour, the weather held up for us Goodgymers - David, Tara, Michael, Helen (welcome back Helen!) and yours truly - as we headed back to Sloane Court to help Tony defeat weeds, and cut back the garden which has gone mad in the warmth and rain of an exceptionally wet summer. We tidied up the parking lot by pulling up weeds that have grown up along the base of the wall, only to reveal hordes (or, according to the internet, routs, walks or escargatoires) of snails. Hopefully the seagulls will have more interesting pickings, and leave our snaily friends be despite now being exposed! We then headed into the back garden where we pulled up weeds, grass clumps growing in the wrong places, pulled off dead leaves from a very tall and interesting plant (see feature photo), and hacked away at what we intially thought was a Peruvian pepper tree, but which turned out to be a rather less interesting Sorbaria. Always check your plant identification app twice! Rita also bombed around, enjoying the attention. After extra time, we bade farewell to Tony who is off to win some sailing (snailing?) races in Chichester. Good luck Tony!

Last night we had what's now considered a bumper session now with a might nine of us helping to improve the Hanover and Elm Grove area! This included Helen who was joining us for her very first task. Helen along with myself, Katharine and Rosemary got stuck into some maintenance around the Almshouses. This area was a complete mess when we started on it but is so much better now with a surprisingly low amount of rubbish to clear! However, there was still the usual amount of bind weed, in all we managed to fill about six bags of rubbish and bind weed.

The rest of the group split into small teams to tackle some more graffiti in various locations. Paul and Jason worked their way along Lewes Road diligently painting over a number of spots. Whilst Susan and Frances worked closer to Hartington Road covering more graffiti.

Last but not least Helena carried out some solo litter picking around the area before helping out with the Almshouses garden too.

All in all we covered a huge amount of ground and work in just an hour to leave the area looking spotless. Afterwards Susan and Rosemary even undertook a quick plank challenge, it's nearly like old times!