Twas a green, grassy and glorious Richmond Group Run, with runners, walkers and cyclists gracing our sponsored plots in Buccleuch Gardens, Richmond for a spot of evening weeding.

It was a task of two grassy halves. Starting at the Arcade everyone dropped to ground level and used cutlery knives to lever out plantains from the Arcade lawn. Hunter was definitely not the only one assuming a downwood dog position.

At the Three Pigeons Plot , the weeding was reversed with the main aim removing unwanted grass. Thankfully, this was somewhat easier and more dignified.

Welcome newcomers Georgie and Naomi who proved to be naturals at plantain pulling and grass busting . A shout out for Teresa who achieved a perfect 10 for her work clearing around the bollard at The Three pigeons. And we were all in awe and wish the very best of luck to our run leader and area activator Liz who revealed she has qualified for the Hyrox World Championships in Nice in June.

Gorgeous flowers spotted but not identified during the task included Veronica (spike speedwell), a compact perennial with a spike of pink flowers and purple Centaurea, a perennial cornflower with vivid, heliotrope purple, thistle-like petals.

Muchas Gracias to The Tap Tavern for allowing us to stow bags and for hosting our monthly social after the Group Run.

This group run took us to the greatest Carolinian landscape in the world and a bat superhighway - Ham Avenues.

Here we came to the rescue of the European lime trees which were being troubled by nasty shoots aka "suckers" growing out from their trunks. These were no match for the GoodGymmers as we used loppers to cut them away.

It was a glorious evening for a gentle run/ walk along the river. We welcomed Joanna to her first GG task, celebrated Maena's birthday and took in Ken's local history knowledge.

I learned so much about bats and their habitat along the Thames. Thank you for a really interesting evening with a friendly bunch of fellow bat-recorders.

This evening started at Tap Tavern, as always, but with an added flourish as Area Activator Liz donned the wings to celebrate 100 GoodGym tasks! A blustery run along the riverside threatened to get the wings actually flying but the group arrived intact at Russell School, ready for action!

Following a very productive Sunday Community Mission at Russell School to carry out the first part of the task, tonight we laid the woodchip down and trampled it into position. With so many hands on deck, and leftover chippings, we were able to re-chip the nursery play area, tidy up the toys, remove some troublesome rubble and STILL find a little time to play on the climbing frames!

A last run back to the Tap completed the task, followed by celebratory drinks in the pub and a little look at the lovely team card made for Liz 😍😍😍

We were re-wilding St Mary Magdalene churchyard and burial grounds. These burial grounds have been decommissioned a long time ago, but Ken still gave us diggers a warning, that it is unknown how many graves are still in the ground! Thankfully we didn't need to dig too deep and it was just a small patch, where seeds were strewn across. We will need to see how this patch will look like in the next month. Also, a big welcome to Olivia, who joined us for the first time!

A late change in the schedule saw the group meet at Petersham Common today where we have been helping task owner Ken to work on the traditional hedgerow this year. This is an amazing way to create a natural living habitat for the area, and it looks amazing too.

Ken has been working hard doing the bleaching and post placement so today we could just focus on the binding for the top using slim branches that can bend and flex around the posts. Split into three groups we managed to cover a large area in one sunny session before stepping back to admire our roadside handiwork with chocolates provided by Ken!