I can't help it if I'm poplar

22 of us gathered last night for our two-task Monday extravaganza.

We spaced ourselves nicely out in front of the beautiful Cranbrook Community Food Garden to enjoy our first workout, where we whizzed through some stretches, balance moves and standing waist exercises. Limited content with no floor or surface to lean on, but the team wereexceedingly tolerant of my limited repertoire.

It was a wonderful start to the evening not just because we put the working day behind us, exchanging keyboards for courgettes, but because this was also our time to welcome Alex and Becs to our Task Force! What a time to join! We are so excited about you joining our unbelievably talented, dedicated Task Force squad. What a fit. Here's to many happy, sociable, exciting weeks ahead for us all.

And so to work.

Becky G was heading up our task de-suckering (is that a term?) the big White Poplar tree at Meath Gardens. Now you may read this and think, "What are they going on about?" but let me tell you: this was a big gardening gig. The council have threatened to take the beautiful vast tree down unless it was tamed, and so the fantastic Friends of Meath Gardens called on us to help tame this tricky tree.

Nothing to see here. Just a yellow skeleton among the trees.

A team headed to the canal, and while some cut brambles and branches, others participated in a litter-pick. And in the process, found a skeleton attached to the outside of a bridge. A yellow plastic skeleton (sorry, should have specified earlier). Which became the focus of the evening. Sorry, White Poplar.

Meanwhile, Leo was heading up the Cranbrook crew who were planting; fixing those fickle vegetable bed trellises, and scurrying around productively as usual. Janet and Eileen who head up the Community Centre and garden are so appreciative: what is great fun for us, and provides an opportunity for us to be together, helps them enormously as local resources are currently a little thin of the ground. And despite their drive and dedication, they do need a hand.

We all met by the canal after 8, and while some opted to call it a night, a few of us gathered by The Mystical Tree (an old tree trunk) at the front of Meath for a little stretching and a bit of extra breathing, to the backdrop of Massive Attack. Heaven.

And so to our shout-outs...

• Well, always it's to our Task Force. Our truly terrific team of individuals who enable us to enjoy weekly activities (Friends of Meath Gardens sent over an eye-wateringly long list of dates to help out, and because our Task Force picked up every single one of them, we can enjoy this regular Monday night gig). Thank you tonight to Becky, in particular, who took time out from moving house to heading up this Community Mission and to Leo for Cranbrook task.

• Thank you to Chris, our HTFM (Honorary Task Force Member) who was on hand, as always, to advise on, ahem, dubious-looking litter-pick items; First Aid, and other top bits of consultation.

• Thank you to Isabelle for coming up with this week's pun in record time (Isabelle had little choice when faced with the option I was proposing...).

• And a HUGE warm welcome to Conor, whose first GG outing it was. Such fun! You did so much - thank you. See you soon?

And that's it for now. Well, until next week when our Isabelle heads up a Monday mission to Hollybush where you'll be fixing netting to a fence, weeding...Ooh, it sounds like a lot to do, so do come on board.

Until then, have a good week and take the greatest care.