On Monday evening GoodGym Liverpool returned to our regular haunt on Park Lane for our urban street clean up.

Congrats to Jess for taking part in her fifth task!!

Most of us got to work removing the throng of thistles, learning top tips such as:

Double gloving is useful when you accidentally bring your rubbish ones You must cut off the thistle flowers and bag them up before their seeds spread Using shears as a method to transport thistles is very effective

Whilst we were tackling the thistles Bekah was doing a boss job litter picking. She also saved a cornucopia of slugs (I did not know this was the collective word for these docile slimy creatures so I've learnt something new).

She rescued them from certain death after finding one half in, half out of a can of lager, she liberated it and then found another 15 inside the can!! So she's relocated them somewhere more suitable so they can enjoy their best life.

We got an incredible amount of work done, as seen in the photo, and here's hoping that we managed to get those wretched seeds into the bags ready to be taken far, far away.

We will be back again next week and I'm so confident we will remove every last one of the thistles ready for Elaine to manage the area to make it beautiful for the people of Liverpool (and for her dog Riley to play in without getting prickled by the offending vegetation).

Well done gang!!

Our monthly Goodgym parkrun breakfast saw a bunch of smiling faces meeting up for our June session. It's a chance for people to meet up at parkrun or at breakfast afterwards or at both.

This month saw Amina, Bekah, Heetu, Jess, Leo, Sian and Steph running parkrun -all looking strong despite the exhausting heat. Lucien saw everyone in through the ever extending finishing tunnel (the number of runners are such that the walk from the finishing line to get to the tokens and scanning is long.... especially after a hot 5k run) . Jo and Sallyann were volunteering on the scanners. After the obligatory photos Amina headed home and the rest of us set off to have breakfast where Liam joined us. That's the beauty of the parkrun and breakfast it really is a chance to fit around your Saturday morning...Come along for whatever and whenever you want.

This month we went to the cafe Minna on Lark Lane for breakfast. Breakfast, which included some amazing colourful matcha drinks, did not disappoint. Over breakfast there was the very important task of applying the stickers to the loyalty cards (although don't forget there is also the mystery categories and who knows when they may just meet a category requirement).

With everyone's cards stickered up we headed off from Lark Lane to carry on our Saturday with that lovely feeling of time spent with a great bunch of people.

John from the Friends of Everton Park jokes that if you want to find a summers eve guaranteed to rain, check the calendar for the Everton Community Garden Open Evening. And true to form, despite the recent heatwave we've been experiencing, the evening was grey and wet - though warm.

However, the garden was well prepared, with large tents for attendees to huddle under plus a stage tent for the musician to keep dry whilst he serenaded us with classics. Goodgym Liverpool are regular helpers at Everton Park and the Community Gardens, and it was a great turnout despite the weather, in no small part due to Goodgym's efficient leafleting of the Everton Telegraph earlier in the week.

The gardens put on a BBQ, a bar, and a scone station for attendees to enjoy, whilst the poly tunnels were open with gardeners available to discuss all the community gardens have to offer.

It's always nice to spend some social time with goodgymmers and we enjoyed the rare opportunity to actually sit down and chat for a while! There was lots of interest in Goodgym from many attendees, and we proudly extolled the virtues of GG - there may even be a some new sign ups or tasks coming off the back of our conversations.

Well done to those who braved the drizzle to turn out and support the gardens, and thank you to John and the Friends of Everton Park for another fabulous evening. It's lovely to see the hard work everyone puts in to the gardens being enjoyed by the local community.

Now back to work for us!

The Everton Telegraph is a community newspaper produced three times a year. Good Gymers, along with some other local volunteers, helped to distribute the summer issue with John from the Everton community gardens.

Dike, Clara, Steph and I arrived early so we put inserts into the paper to tell everyone about Friday’s social at the community garden.

Dan, Sian and Sophie ran from Hope Street.

We were split into groups- Sophie and I, Bekah with Jess and Clara, Dan, Sian and Dike got driven away by John a bit further afield (but not as far as St Helen’s) and Steph and Sallyann stayed at the gardens to prepare them for Friday and do a bit of watering.

It was a balmy evening. We got a fantastic response from the locals when we delivered the paper. One recipient said ‘Just say it’s the Telegraph!’ Everyone was expecting it and some offered tips.

This week we returned to help Friend's of St James Gardens finish what we had previously started - clearing all the weeds from the paving around the monument.

It was a beautiful summers evening and 4 goodgymmers tackled a few hill reps, before joining the others to get on with the real hard work.

Working away with various implements, we filled wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow with moss, grass, dandelions and a whole host of others weeds, as well as clearing the site of litter. To top it off we were even treated to a visit from Goodgym retiree, Pauline, who was passing on her bike! This really spurred us on to make short work of the weeding and as you can clearly see from the after pic, we did a rather fabulous job!

As if that wasn't enough Sallyann then treated us to some chocolates and the traditional birthday oranges!

After our good gym park run and fuelled with breakfast, Steph kindly gave me a lift to my mission, it was on her way home but this was not the only part Steph played in my mission!

I arrived and after a fiddling with a safebox for a wee while I got into Ms M house. Ms M although was bed bound in her front room chatted to me about her garden and a green box of tools!

I plodded round to the back garden in search of said green box and did not find it but found a few rusty secateurs and some broken shovels (those I did not murder but there is time for that later!)

I looked at the enormity of the overgrown garden with baby saplings growing from all sorts of places, knowing my gloves would not cut it and called for back-up…Totally saving me day, super Steph came with a couple secateurs saving options!

They allowed me to tackle a little section of the patio to get the saplings or more like mini trees in some cases out and bring up the grass carpet to reveal the patio slabs.

I could see that Ms M loves water features and flamingos as clearing up I could hear some solar panelled whirring probably to move water that had totalled dried up in the heat of the last few weeks. I kept finding broken flamingo heads in the undergrowth (again not my murdering, still time for that!) but there were some complete flamingos still standing and as I looked further into the garden I could see that once Ms M garden would have been amazing with all her features some of them still making it look inviting in the secret overgrown garden kinda way.

I not only jumped at weird solar panel noises but at wonderful carers coming in to take care of Ms M surprising me in the secret garden. I went back into the house to meet them and to show Ms M progress on the garden with a few photos, I think she could see the difference.

It was hot day and before I knew it my time was up and I only tackled, maybe not even a tenth of what was needed. I would love to come back and work through the rest, maybe even get a team of us to renew this secret garden!

So here is my confession… in my zeal to tidy the last of the patio weeds up, I did break the garden brush so still earning my title ‘brush murder’… I have been sooo good lately but have to admit this recent act but in my defence the brush handle was rusting!

Anyway I returned the tools I had not broken to Steph (without her this mission would not have been possible), had to leave a black bag of rubbish in the backyard and a green bin full of saplings, carpet of grass and weed debris!

I ran a few miles home struggling in the heat but thinking what could be discovered the next bit of the secret garden!