Oodles of plants and weeds going to seed in the Cemetery gardens so we’re scooped up and bagged or piled to limit the number of new plants (especially of the weed variety) next year.

The soil was bone dry so some weeds were easily pulled out and others were holding on as if planted in cement.

When 12 noon approached, we tidied up and headed to a café for, well, coffee and the heavens opened with much-needed rain bouncing off the vehicles passing by and pedestrians dashing for doorways to shelter. And me declaring this was one of my favourite smells - summer rain. Queue Richard’s extensive general knowledge to tell us this has a special word, Petrichor - the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil or pavement. Will wonders never cease?

Jerusalem sage, buttercups, brambles. These are all our enemies at the moment and our job to clear today along with other adhoc neatening of Brunswick Cemetery. I marvelled at the fancy secateurs, which you really have to try to appreciate the genius. We also had an additional task of looking out for a yellow ball that a dog had lost, but this eluded us. A lovely morning out in the deceptively hot sunshine.

Until next time…

Removing brambles and buttercups from the cemetery - it's a dead serious business. I reached the cemetery at 9:00 and found Melanie, Di and M removing weeds. We cleared the path around a few plots.

We de-flowered the buttercups - its seed got everywhere and it was a pain to get it off our gloves and clothes. The brambles put up resistance at being pulled but we nipped them at the root.

Di showed us pictures of the space from a decade ago. Looking at the overgrowth I could appreciate her grave concerns.

The sun had been hiding behind the clouds and came out just as we were finishing. Looking at the the cleared graves in bright sunlight lifted our spirits. We collected up the brambles and green waste and laid them to rest, at a convenient place for gardeners to collect.

It was totally worth digging in. With a few more session we will bring the place back to life.

Thanks, Dushyant

A very warm evening greeted Bristol GoodGym with Matt making his first appearance - hopefully the first of many!

Runners and walkers set off for Brunswick Cemetery after the usual health and safety chat with the plan to take out as many buttercup seed heads before they could scatter to make more weeds next year. The hot weather has meant they're "ripening" really fast this year.

A breakdown in communication meant the runners had started on pathfinding the lovely spiral that keeps disappearing with some swapping to the buttercup blitz.where we filled black bags and were still only halfway through the park!

It was soon time to head back to Workout for a well-earned drink or two to chat a bit more about life, the universe and everything. More to follow next week!

Who doesn't like to clear brambles and bindweed on a balmy spring evening? We absolutely love it, and so does Dushyant who came for his difficult second good deed and even Jordan managed to stay awake to come this week! We made light work of the task and cleared loads and loads and we reckon the weeds have had enough now and won't grow back! The inaugural 'jumping after 3' award, goes to Richard who was the only person to achieve the minimum required height, this young man will go far and I see a gold medal in the next Olympics!

Will it rain… won’t it rain. It didn’t. Four goodgymers met like the horsemen of the apocalypse, but more wholesome to do some good in Brunswick square. Much weed was pulled and we had a nice chat with the local constabulary. A couple of hours in the sunshine and we were done.

Until next time…