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.

Lunchtime gardening mission preparing for the evening Group Run session in our sponsored plots in Buccleuch Gardens, Richmond.

Anita tidied and swept the Arcade, picked up litter, strengthened the ‘twiggy barricades’, planted woodruff and replaced the withy triffid that has mysteriously disappeared along with some of the new planting near the Arcade Rockery bench.

Sammy P and JP got together on a beautiful Sunday afternoon to post leaflets for the Volunteer Fair organised by Richmond CVS.

It was wonderful to walk the streets of St Margarets, basking in the warmth of the sunshine and the glow of doing our bit for the local community.

Having said that, it was a relief to finish by 4:30 and to watch a good football team beat a bad football team… relief all round!

A glorious morning of sunshine greeted the 7 GGers who headed out to the Ham Lands for a morning of doing good. As usual, Sharon was there to meet us and led the group to an area we had tackled around the same time last year, where we had cut down the suckers growing up near the cherry trees.

So it was a morning of sticks (and saplings and brambles). We cut them down from the main tree in the middle, from the surrounding areas and from the undergrowth, and gathered them up to deposit in the ever-increasing pile tucked away amongst the trees.

While most of us were having a stick-y time with the choppers and loppers, Rosie tackled an even stickier challenge left behind by a passing canine to help prevent sticky shoes for walkers using the pathway 💩

We worked hard and made a lot of progress, and at the end of our allotted time we had made a real difference, as well as soaking up some vitamin D from the warming sunshine.

All that was left was a group picture before we headed off to the Swiss bakery for delicious coffees and snacks.

Next time up is the 8th June - you can sign up here: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/helping-the-happy-ham-landers-3ae1f524-d6fd-44ec-a291-890a4ec45133

Task 1: Lifting a Shipping continar by hand! Who needs Strong men competition when you have Good gym. Ok we did use a large pole, we are still the strongest Goodgymers in the west.

Task 2: Prep for Moving boats, We moved old types ready fo boats to rest on. At this point I was questioning why, we are not preping for to the next 40 day flood.

Task 3: Switching Boats over so the outside boat can get cleaned. As you have guess the rain was getting heavyer and these Boats are not how I image Noah loading animals. By we did lift safely 2 by 2.

Task 4: Sweeding the main building, in doing this task the Kayaks where moved. I think it was a quick once over to confirm we can get into boats ready for the high waters.

Task 5: Sam climbed the stair way to mud, to clean the continars. I docmented the flowers so we have arecord for when the floods come.

We walked away in the Sunny (and not so dry) Richmond

On the path to rehoming Bugs, we completed digging up a path. The result will be creating a new path from from the street to the Art's Entrance, making sure the path is not steep and is wheelchair friendly.

The four of us, finished the task that was started (also by goodgym Richmond) yesterday. The section of path I did had a large number of white bugs that we rehomed into the grass.

It was a lovely tasks that was easy work with the Art's centre voluteer also helping.