Turning over a new leaf for spring

Somerleyton Road - Damian Peat

The weather report had lied. As we all turned up at Poppa's Place, it was wet and cold and dark but ,surprisingly, moral was still very high. What's a bit of rain, eh? Once you're wet, you’re wet. And besides, as Rebecca exclaimed, 'Next week winter is over, it'll be light, we made it through a whole winter!' With our spirits lifted we made our way to Somerleyton Road, a marathonic 800 yard dash away. On Somerleyton Road, just opposite Brixton Village, there is an old, unused car park, which is being turned into a night market and a hotspot for local artists and musicians. They needed a hand clearing about 6 tonnes of leaf mulch. After popping up the road to their headquarters further down Somerleyton Road, we were given some vague instructions, do this, move this, put it like this, make sure it's level, here’s some shovels and rakes. A few of us then carried a very heavy box (ahem) down to the car park and hoisted it over the gate, in a Crystal Maze type affair. 'I can't see what I'm supposed to do.' After much lifting, shifting, raking and shovelling, we surprised ourselves by actually clearing the entire mountain of dead leaves into the boxes and revealing underneath a rather well ordered car park. John, our host, then came round and asked us to clear up some of the edges. He said a hoe would be perfect for this kind of job but unfortunately they were working up Brixton Hill. Ho, ho, ho. (Ha! A double pun). Enter Stage Left, Rebecca, just to make sure we had all done enough exercise, circuits of Prison Squats, deep lunges and squat jumps and this morning I woke up with every muscle in my body saying a twisted 'good morning, remember last night?' Normally that voice is associated with a massive hangover. Today it is associated with Good Gym. I'm not sure which I prefer.

Wyck Gardens - Beth Hoskins

After welcoming the newcomers and hearing about Tom's recent triumphs at the GoodGym darts night and the Reading half marathon (well done Benson!), some of us headed to a new task at Wyck Gardens. It took us a little while to find her, but Marion was waiting for us with a plethora of tools. She was initially concerned about how much we could get done in half an hour but then remembered that she'd seen the GoodGym advert on TV so knows what we are capable of on a dark and drizzly night. Our task was simple, to remove a patch of turf so that the area can be planted with flowers and shrubs. It was hard work and although we didn't quite manage to finish the job we made a good start and will back to finish it one day. After making sure all the tools were back where they belonged we headed back to base and found that we were first group back. Not content with just standing around, Katie and Becca got the group doing squats and lunge walks until the others came back.