3 intrepid good gymers were taken deep into the woods with Doug from Danesgate school. A wonderful hour or so was spent exploring and then some very satisfying 'dedging' was done. Doug was delighted with progress. There's still lots more woodland tasks that he would like good gym muscles to help with, specifically moving the large felled tree trunks to the YUMI allotment, so hopefully another trip will transpire.

Today started with a massive round of applause for Leanne who has recently reached 800 good deeds. It means that Leanne was out 800 times volunteering in York! That is a huge achievement deserving a massive CHEER!

Following a Michal-Egg jointly run warm-up we split up into two teams and were ready to do more good in York.

A team of 11 ran over to Glen Gardens to clear the borders around the new accessible pathway.

Adi met them there and warned that the ground was hard and dry but that was a massive understatement. It was almost impenetrable.

There was one really cool spade with a point end and saw edges! Paul Kelly put it to good use and managed to make good progress on his patch.

Lucy and Max escaped with some loppers to cut back overgrowth further along the path and they missed out on an extraordinary range of conversation about ‘the longest fence in the world’ and the paint colour ‘forth bridge red’.

With a fairly decent area of border cleared, the team moved onto bark chipping, armed with only two wheelbarrows and a lot of leaf grabbers.

21 seconds to go!

They were being chucked out of the park because the gatekeeper needed to lock up, but not before Bec and Lucy completed an amazing jigsaw of getting all the tools and the two wheelbarrows back in the metal tool shed.

Er.. one of those is mine and I need it back - Adi

Let’s hope for some rain and softer ground next time!

Meanwhile a team of 13 ran to Danesgate School. Jackie and Carl joined us at the task, making the team 15 strong.

Some of us were familiar with the location as we have been here before on three community mission. Today we were determined to complete what we have started back in April, namley remove every remaining bit of the invasive grass and other unwanted weeds and make space for new plants.

Guess what, the ground was hard here too...

Be careful not to dig into the electric wire - Debbie the task owner

To be on the safe side Ros, Cara, Jenna and Abi opted for a selection of trowels as oppose to forks and went on weeding along the paving slabs.

Barbara and Laura wielded a fork each and focused on the bit of the garden close the the school wall and well away from the illuminated path.

Rich, Stuart, Vicky and Izzie dug and pulled at the weeds by the wooden fence and the rest of us worked around the edges.

About 20 minutes into the task the ton bag was looking like full and Stuart stepped in. With Leanne's and Carl's assistance he demonstrated very effective compaction technique which involved jumping on top of the green stuff to make space for more.

We are an efficient bunch and Michal, Louise and Carl even found time to list the next bench marking task on the website.

With all the unwanted roots and weeds removed and the landscape fabric expertly laid Debbie opened the remote controlled gate and bid us farewell.

Back at the base and with various degree of eagerness we did few fun exercises including walking lunges, spiderman walk, duck walks, crab walk and backward walking lunges, before heading to the Ackhorne for the traditional after run social.

Next week we are all going to Hull Road Park.

9 GG Yorkies met on a glorious* Yorkshire evening to help Danesgate School overhaul their reception/front garden. This was GG’s 3rd visit to the school and there was still a lot of work to do. The area was so overgrown the roots were longer than Mitch!

Viking Vicky and Emma attacked the bramble roots with force and a few blueberry plants may have been hurt in the massacre. Leanne, Pork Belly (Paul) and Mitch lopped to their hearts content taking down the overhanging bushes. Whilst Cara and Liz fought with the wildly ivy. Fergie dog had a great wheelbarrow ride with Ed.

There’s still some unfinished business with those pesky roots so no doubt we’ll be back again!

*overcast and muggy with a few raindrops

5 GG Yorkies met in a spot of glorious sunshine to carry on the weeding of the beds at Danesgate School. It's also Ellie's 200th good deed - hurrah!

Laura, who attended the first bash at the weeding swore that they cleared two beds, but it had grown back with such vigor that it led to John contemplating if the roots of the weeds were from the Roman times. So, unsurprisingly, the task was to re-weed the bed next to reception before putting down some weed matting to stop them growing back for a third time.

We all got stuck in, but top marks go to Paul who was just a weeding machine. Bonus points are also awarded to our resident archaeologist Jon, who managed to find some pottery which he somewhat vaguely dated as 'post-medieval'. Once the hour was up, it was time to spread the matting over the cleared section and weigh it down with the ton sack of weeds and roots, and two very pretty pots of hostas.

Unfortunately, it looks like it'll need revisiting again to try and wrangle it under control - possibly with a bigger team next time!

On a sunny balmy evening a eager bunch of GG-ers assembled at Danesgate school to dig deep into some weeding.

Debbie our host explained that the school had been gifted some extra plants for their reception courtyard but a lot of the space had been overcome with weeds. Debbie had come fully stocked with every tool we could possibly need so in no time at all we all got stuck in to weeding the beds. David nobly took on the large area of brambles at the rear with his special leather gloves and also picked a couple of fights with some extensive root systems.

The rest of us took a more regimented flanked approach working from the outside in , whilst discussing dog training and brewing (aka The catching up with Carl live podcast session). Graham meanwhile was dismantling a small dead tree on the other side with Debbie supervising.

"When will I get my GG weeding badge - you all seem very knowledgeable?" - David asked, to which the honest answer we decided was trowel and error, a result of our built up collective gardening task experience.

After a pleasant hour of weeding time was called and all the remaining garden waste was transported to a skip round the side of the school. Debbie activated the electronic gates and we raced home like kids at the end of school.