On a finally cool summer evening, Goodgym assembled at St James Gardens to get to work giving the park a bit of a spruce up.

We divided into three teams: Bekah and Sallyann on the litter picking, Ellie, Dina and Clara on the weeding and Naser and Vikky on bench varnishing duty.

We were joined by Friends of St James Gardens who provided fun facts (like what a pineapple weed is) and witty jokes (a lorry carrying Strepsils overturned on the motorway; there was no congestion).

We soon got 'into the groove' of the task, quite literally in the case of the weeding, whereby we were digging up weeds between the paving slabs. Likewise the varnishing team successfully varnished two of the newly installed (and very nice looking) benches for years to come by very carefully applying Varnish into all the 'grooves'. Even the litter picking duo conquered the 'grooves' of the park, retrieving litter from some of the nooks and crannies.

All in all, after two benches varnished, two bin bags filled and a good chunk of patio was weeded, we called it a night and said our goodbyes before heading off in our various directions until next week!

We were asked to help Ms Y cut back her blackberry bush to maintain her tenancy. When I arrived Miriam and Ms Y were already chatting away, Ms Y was telling Miriam all about the local seagull, Sammy, who comes to visit her twice a day. After short introductions, and a warning it was "a big job", we headed into the back garden where Ms Y announced "Welcome to the jungle!".

The bramble had indeed taken over the majority of the right hand side of the garden. After a super quick pow wow on approach ("I think we just dive in"), we did just that. Miriam took one side of the garden and I took the other. In the distance and mostly hidden by bramble we could see Ms Y's Greenhouse - she wanted to be able to access it again to fix a tear in the roof so it remains waterproof.

I'll be honest, we're generally super efficient at GoodGym but I wasn't holding out much hope for 2 of us being able to get rid of all that bramble in 90 mins. I thought we'd make a really good stab of it, get a good dent gone, but potentially have to report to the referrer that more help was needed. Nonetheless, we cracked on and started to do what we could.

It was slow going work. The brambles were so twisted, gnarly and tough it took a long time to make any headway. We could both completely see how they're apparently carnivorous plants - we were getting battered! They kept attaching themselves to my shirt, shoes, leggings, skin... Miriam's excellent new gardening gloves made her feel invincible and she expertly whipped through the bramble, but as good as the gloves are, they can only help with what they cover, and her upper arms were super scratched.

Ms Y wouldn't even entertain the idea of sitting down and not helping us. Although not steady on her feet, she cut through the parts we'd hacked and made it easier to bag them up, helping us throughout the whole task. As she helped, she chatted, and told us all about the numerous cats who come into her garden (some hers, such as Guinness, who we met, some not hers), the pigeon who she feeds, and all the animals she's looked after over the years. It was lovely to hear how she has such a way with animals. The time flew as we chatted away, and before I knew it - the greenhouse was in reach! Buoyed by the tangible progress we'd made, we were determined to get through the last sections and spent the last half an hour clearing the way to the greenhouse with Miriam singlehandedly raising a forest of brambles over her head to take out to the green waste pile.

I was so glad Miriam remembered to get a 'before' picture to capture the difference. It really felt like a very good job well done and super valuable for Ms Y, who can now access her garden, the greenhouse, and keep on top of the garden before it becomes overgrown again. Ms Y clearly loves her outside areas and puts lots of love and thought into them, this was a good example of a one-off task which is really beneficial to help her get on top of it so she can now continue to maintain it.

Bekah and I arrived promptly to Mrs M’s on this sweltering day. When we met Mrs M she directed us to the two fridges in her spare room. We got cracking straight away. She needed them put in her front yard so that they could be collected by bulky bob’s tomorrow. One was a table top fridge which we managed with ease and the other was a much bigger fridge freezer which we just about manoeuvred around the corners and out of the door, that one was pretty heavy. The fridge freezer had leaked a bit across the floor so we wiped that up with kitchen roll for Mrs M so that she wouldn’t slip. Within 10mins we were done and Mrs M remarked that we were super fast and efficient which is always nice to hear. Bekah and I were free to enjoy the sun and look forward to this evening’s England semi-final World Cup game against Argentina. Come on England!!

It was a very warm evening in Liverpool. Sefton park was very busy with people enjoying the evening sun, picnics, ball games and singing.

In a corner of the park runners were gathering to run the annual Tony Barnes Memorial 5-Mile run. Tony Barnes was a member of the Mossley Hill athletics club and when he passed away his community started this run in his honour.

Waiting at the start line were Sophie, Bekah and Steph. Lots of other runners were in their packs of running club mates, it was both reassuring and intimidating to our goodgym runners… this would be a great run but also a challenging one with lots of strong runners picking up the pace.

Me and Aatefa pitched up at the intersection where runners would pass multiple times as they made their way in a figure of eight around the lake and around the top of the park. Sallyann cheered on the runners from the pavillion area of the park.

It was a gruelling run in the heat. Lots of runners were visibly struggling but all three of our goodgym runners managed to smash the 5-miler (8km) race in under an hour. Steph came in at 58.38, a whole 12 mins under her predicted 1hr 10mins. Bekah came in at 52.54, a whopping 3.20 mins faster than her time last year. And Sophie came in at just 45.34, an amazing achievement.

Once our runners were finished it was time to head to the picnic tables for our annual picnic, Dike and Ellie joined us and there was so much delicious food we had enough for all of us to take lunch for the next two days! Special mention for Steph’s homemade brownies, Bekah’s famous salt and pepper sausage rolls, and Dike’s incredible effort into cooking fried chicken wraps and fried plantain. He may have decided not to run the race but more than made up for it in his cooking efforts. We all decided that Dike had set a level of expectation in us all that would mean he would have to prepare this for every future gathering.

It was so nice to stay out until late in the park and enjoy this summer tradition. Well done runners and thank you to everyone for making a great picnic.