We had a brilliant morning at St Richard’s, so absorbed in the tasks at hand that we ended up spending an extra hour finishing our jobs.

A big welcome to Bianca, who joined us for her first GoodGym session – and what a start! She tackled the ivy in the back garden with great enthusiasm, leaving it looking much neater and tidier, just look at the before and after pics. 💪

Meanwhile, Cat and Arthur got stuck into some serious weeding, helping clear the garden of weeds and lopping off the growth round the bottom of the trees. Over at the front door, Ivar and Vic took on the job of sanding it down, prepping it for a much-needed refresh. Once smooth, Vic and I gave it a fresh coat of varnish, with some very important assistance from Arthur – a true team effort!

By the end of the session, the garden was looking clean, weed-free, and litter-free, and the front door had been transformed.

A morning well spent, made even better by a well-earned cup of tea to wrap things up (thank you Rick!) Thanks everyone for your energy and teamwork – see you at the next one!

Next wednesday we've got gardening at Hervey Road . Next Saturday we're back at Mycenae Gardens to help with more weeding.

Until next time 😊

Rachel

This session was a lovely excuse to engage in some nice peaceful gardening.

As a typical city dweller, it can be easy to overlook simple yet impactful acts of garden preservation such as weeding or socialising with people from diverse aspects of life. This mission offered the perfect excuse to do both by gifting us a loving and vibrant atmosphere where people could momentarily escape their hectic routines and dwell upon the peacefulness of reconnection with nature and other humans.

In the end, all we are, are creations of nature meant to connect while helping each other grow like a tall and magnificent sunflower.

On Wednesday evening we gathered at Charlton House, in an unusually negative spin for us at GoodGym - sharing our pet peeves. This evening we were joined by Sunaima and Lisa for their first group runs with us! WE ran to Prince Philip Maritime Collection Centre where Khursheed had a load of tasks for us, including weeding, watering, propping up a giant sunflower, giving the bug hotel a makeover and throwing some rubbish out. Jobs complete some of us ran and some of us walked back to base for a stretch.

Great work everyone!

On Saturday we have gardening at St Richard's and next Wednesday we're back for a Charlton House start to help with the garden at Hervey Road.

Until next time!

It was wonderful to see quite a few signed up, some last minute sign ups and easily persuaded GoodGymer's joining us at a brand new task in Deptfod.

We didn't really know what was in store for us but what we did find was an amazing community garden tucked away from the street. I'm not sure you'd know it was there unless you were in the know.

There was plenty of tasks for us to get stuck into and our hosts were very excited to have us there. Once we divided up tasks, we all got stuck in. There was the standard alkinet removal, digging up some plants, sweeping up leaves, clearing under some bushes and then last but not least, sitting on a yellow chair to fill the buckets with water.

That leads me to mentioning it was Mo's last group run before his move to Geneva. We celebrated with some swiss rolls! We'll miss you Mo and thank you for all your hard work. You've been a big part of the group!

One of those are edible and one of those is stinky but excellent for the plants!! A gaggle of GoodGymers went up and over the hills to meet us at Seniors, whilst those of us meeting at the task had a lovely chat with our hosts for the evening.

Once we'd arrived we set about assigning jobs for the evening, who wanted to dig, who wanted to rip up some comfrey leaves, who wanted to water and who wanted to tackle a delicate job of digging out some seedlings.

There's always a task for everyone and Monday evening was no different except at Senior's there always seems to be a last minute rush for the hosepipe or a last minute dash to make sure something is watered. On Monday we had to make sure the comfrey tea fertiliser was topped up with water so when we come back in September we can water over the plants and give them the goodness.

Tonight we were celebrating Darryl's birthday which meant cupcakes and a drink at the Blythe Hill Tavern for those not running back to Glass Mill.

Thanks to Paul for leading the group safely to Seniors whilst I'm still waiting on the sign off from the physio! Next week is a brand new task so sign up!!