6 Goodgymmers made their way to Walnut Tree Close to help at the new community garden. After helping to clear the area of tarmac at a previous task, it has undergone a huge transformation already, with beds and gravel in place. First up was clearing gravel from under the weed membrane to remove trip hazards - Divya and Sevan made short work of it and joined Kash and Beth bagging the top layer of gravel in the beds, ready for children to plant herbs. Guessing the strength of six year olds was a little tricky but resolved by 'if i can pick it up with one arm, they probably can'. Rohan took on shaving down tree stumps around the edge, while Pippa cut back a particularly spikey plant.

The group then set to work bedding down the gravel and removing signs that foxes thought the area was a giant litter tray... various tactics were used to flatten the ground, with circuits, squats and jumps making an appearance (true goodgym style).

Next up was making two water butts secure in the far corner. From a distance, it looked like a game of sardines but was actually a very intense conversation about how to move a rather full one, and a philosophical discussion of whether it was half-full or half-empty ensued. After some quick thinking by Sevan, the water was moved into buckets and the butts were safely secured.

A bit more raking of the ground and the job was done.

Proving that GoodGymmers go gladly where others fear to tread, the sound of hard work and giggling filled the air in Barnes last night as we continued Saturday's task to remove the tarmac on Walnut Close. This unused area in a Housing Association site was not only unloved, but attracting some unsavoury activity. The Barnes Community Gardeners have a vision to turn it into a Mediterranean-style garden for those who live there to enjoy and for children to grow things in. But to get there, the old tarmac had to go.

Saturday's Community Mission group had torn up huge chunks of tarmac, stacked up on the side. Last night's job was to break down the chunks so that they could fit inside cars to go to the dump (big shout out to Jp who volunteered his own car boot to help shift some of it), to remove the determined roots that had somehow still managed to come to life under the tarmac, and to get into the edges of the tarmac where it was tricky to get hold of an edge and get it away from the walls.

A fab physical task followed with members jumping on the tarmac chunks to break them down (see our Instagram page @goodgymrichmond for a particularly enthusiastic demonstration by Lucy!), Divya and James working non-stop to prise the tarmac from the edges and everyone getting involved with clearing the area.

Many hands make light, if somewhat filty, work and the area was left looking ready for the very exciting next stages by the end of the session. We look forward to returning for the creative stages and seeing this wonderful project come to reality.

It was a brand new location for our mission on Saturday morning. The sky was overcast and we were a bit chilly as we gathered on the corner of a residential street close to Barnes town centre to meet task owner Crispin.

That wasn’t to last though as the sun soon came out, and the task was definitely one to get us sweating. Crispin led the group to a patch of land amongst the houses which had been surfaced long ago with the kind of bouncy rubber/tarmac used for playgrounds. Our mission was the tear it up to prepare the area for the development of a new garden for residents.

Crispin is involved in several charities and has the kind of energy and enthusiasm that can really inspire a group like us, and after he had briefed us we got stuck in with gusto. Through trial and error with the various tools on offer we discovered how to make enough of a rip in the surface to start pulling up great big sections of it in one go.

It was really, really hard work and the beating sun meant the water Crispin had brought for us was very welcome. But it was also very satisfying to be able to make progress with our efforts and the ever widening hole of bare earth gave us the motivation to keep going.

Crispin told us he would be taking the pieces we had torn up to the Townmead dump, so we had to break them up into manageable chunks to put in the car. This initially proved very difficult, with only a pair of garden loppers and a few fairly ineffectual old saws to make a cut and then a gargantuan effort needed to rip the pieces in two.

Fortunately Beth discovered that by folding the pieces in half and jumping on the fold they would split much more easily: cue much jumping up and down while holding onto each other for balance as we broke the sections we had piled up to the side into smaller pieces and started loading the car.

We didn’t manage to get all of the surface up and we were all a bit worried about the weight on the axles of Crispin’s wife’s car, but we knew there would be another chance to come back and finish the job on Monday evening’s Group Run.

After a group photo we headed off to Barnes for coffee and snacks, tired but feeling thoroughly satisfied with the job we had done!

To join for Part 2 on Monday evening, check out the Richmond session list and sign up!