We were asked by Tracy at Foss Fairy Trail to help remove some fallen trees.

When we arrive our first task was to shift some big logs. With a bit of team work and ‘logistics’ along with Ed’s big muscles we soon polished off this job.

We then sawed up then dragged two fallen trees away from the trail.

Tracy was very impressed with our quick work. We all then did selfies of ourselves doing good and headed off home.

🧤15 green-fingered GoodGymmers met for our weekly group run. We were thrilled to welcome Rachel for her first GoodGym session 👋

🧂After naming our favourite crisp flavour (a few classics, a few more unusual and somebody who doesn't like crisps), we warmed up and split into two groups for tonight's tasks.

🌳Half the group were led by Mitch back to Park Grove School to meet Vicky who had prepared a session there. Mitch had this to say (along with the accompanying diagram)...

🌱For our task, we needed to:

1) Transport bark with a wheelbarrow to fill in a flower bed.

2) Transport soil in a wheelbarrow to fill in gaps on a large earth mound to stop it being a trip hazard.

⚡After taking the 'scenic' route, we arrived at the school and got straight into it. Our system involved shovelling into the barrows and whilst they were being transported, the shovellers ran at lightning speed to the next pile and were ready for the barrows!

🌺After a swift 40 minutes, all the holes were filled and the flower beds were well-barked. We may have missed the fitness session though...

🧚‍♀️🧚‍♂️The other half of us headed in a similar direction to Foss Fairy Trail where we met Tracy who was impressed and somewhat surprised at our enthusiasm for volunteering in the dark (the words "You're all crazy" were uttered multiple times 😳).

🧙‍♂️🧙‍♀️ Sadly, the woodchip we were due to be dispersing hadn't arrived so Tracy had conjured some alternative tasks for us.

🚴‍♀️🚴‍♂️We started off by clearing logs, rubble and rubbish from a little patch that had sadly been used as a bit of a dumping ground. The variety of "junk" we unearthed was impressive and included a children's slide, a bike wheel (with what looked like part of the bike rack still attached) and some very long extension leads. This was wheelbarrowed to the edge of the park to be collected by the council.

👃👀This task was done to a fairly pungent background aroma provided by some people smoking something on a nearby bench, hence the pun.

💪Our next task was moving some (very heavy) rubble that is going to form part of a new feature of the Fairy Trail, hopefully being transformed into a rock garden with a water feature (and another fairy house, obviously).

🙌Using our collective GoodGym strength, we were able to do both tasks in good time for a jog back to base. We even managed some rock, paper, scissors bonus fitness while we waited for the other team. Having realised that they were running late, we cracked on with the main fitness - a HIIT workout "borrowed" from Michal that featured lots of kicking (the air, not each other).

😎Our fellow GoodGymmers joined us just in time to stretch, cool off and head to the pub.

👏Thank you everyone, excellent work.

Don't forget to check here for all our upcoming sessions. This week, we particularly need more people at Hull Road Park on Wednesday evening and Holgate Community Orchard on Saturday morning.

After what felt like not enough sleep, the brave princesses set to warming up their legs at New Earswick and Knavesmire parkruns, some of them fortifying themselves with a sneaky second breakfast at The Hound Lounge, then gathered at the Northernmost end of the Fairy Trail to receive their magical mission. After enchanting everyone into the mission with talk of wood chip spreading, it turned out the bad fairies/woodsmen had not delivered it in time so they had to make do with storming the castle (old football pitch) and chopping back the brambles which had grown up over seemingly a hundred years (ok my stretched Sleeping Beauty metaphor is giving in around now).

With a variety of acquired tools, the team of princesses split into the sweeper/barreller team of Leanne, Tay, Liz and Mel, and the chopper team of Cara and Nikki, while Chief Fairy Tracy started chopping back elsewhere - briefly revealing her brambly fairy wings which got tangled in her jumper. Team Chop made good progress and soon finished their corner and moved over to help Tracy - not noticing that Team Sweep were nearly drowning under a sea of spikes and pin-pricks over in the tidy-up corner, from which they had to carry all the long spiky branches in barrows through a gap in the fence and into the enchanted forest. Eventually they realised and stopped creating more to tidy up and instead helped them to finish up to the goal-posts before the tired princesses called it a day. Plenty more castle to storm another day!

Many a pin (bramble) prick was recieved but luckily no-one fell asleep on the job, and several of us set off to fortify ourselves with a second/third breakfast at a nearby cafe, where apparently everything comes with cream on top :-)

Four adventurous GoodGymers met in the woods along the River Foss to help out with some drain clearance. We were asked to help clear an old abandoned drainage ditch of silt and soil. This would make the area look nicer and improve flow.

Luckily we were prepared with our wellies as it was definitely a dirty and smelly task! I brought my waders along which may have been overkill, but I think they helped!

We all got stuck in digging up whatever horrors the ditch had to offer (mainly silt). Abi was especially stuck in, as everytime we saw her she had massive amounts of soil at the end of her shovel. Michal got busy unblocking a small culvert and Leanne removed many large boulders from the stream. It was certainly a task of brute force!

After an hour, we made a massive dent in cleaning the ditch. Whilst it wasn't 100% complete, we managed to remove a large amount of the silt and made a noticable improvement to flow. Job well done!

Four Goodgymers braved the heat and met Tracy and her team to clear some rubbish from the side of the river Foss. A few items had been dumped - a big rusty seat which looked like it was from a mini bus, a long heavy plank of wood and a few other rusty bits of metal. With the help of a wheelbarrow we shifted the items down the path for a couple of hundred meters to the bridge where is was getting collected by the council or being recycled into a seat. The journey was all the more enjoyable because of all the little fairy houses hiding along the path! After 45 mins we were all done and I got the pleasure of meeting baby Freddie on the way home! Thanks to us The Foss Fairy Trail, a public river walk with a difference is now safer for children to enjoy.