The earth was hard and the weeds reluctant to be uprooted but thankfully we were able to find plenty of shade for our park tidying work during this week’s heatwave. The evening breeze brought welcome relief and there was even some lovely background music provided by a sax player practising on a nearby bench! Claire and Claudia tackled a stubborn patch of grass that had overtaken a bed under some trees, while Linda joined Friends of Cator Park volunteers in weeding around roses and constructing a cane wigwam to support climbers. We all agreed it was nice to be outside doing a good deed – Clare’s 45th, Claudia’s 43rd and Linda’s 40th so there may be a bit of friendly rivalry over coming weeks as we set our sights on earning our Goodgym black T shirts!

Gorgeous evening for our return visit to the Rose garden; after a little treasure hunt for the shed key, we set out to clear another section of the flowerbed armed with various tools from Andrew's shed. Tackling the never ending roots of bindweed, cutting down bramble and generally digging out anything weedlike, we made a sizeable dent (2 bags worth) in getting this flowerbed looking neat & tidy, with roses showing off their wonderful blossoms. Looking forward to the next visit, hopefully with more hands on deck so we can finish it off.

I really enjoyed helping weed around some hedging plants by Hogsmill and then removing some bramble from Kingston Cemetery to help improve and protect habitat for yellow meadow ants. Beautiful weather, good company and worthwhile tasks.

From Alison of Kingston Biodiversity University Group 'Thanks to Good Gym and a great task along the Hogsmill yesterday. This included: painting the benches; removing flytipped rubbish; cutting up discarded debris; and weeding around the hedge that was planted last year. When finished we went into the cemetery to take the young bramble growth off the yellow meadow ant mounds. There are two pairs of grey wagtails nesting along this stretch of the Hogsmill, its a good place for house sparrows and we had a good view of a great spotted woodpecker in a young ash tree.'