Welcome to Derek for you first GoodGym session!

With a warm and sunny bank holiday weekend, the parks were packed, which also meant that the bins were overflowing with litter from takeaways and picnics. To counter the problem, Derek, Scott, Victor, and Ben met up in St Peter's Square to make the ~2 km jog towards the green spaces in Ardwick to remove as much as the litter as possible.

We started on the Greek Street green space near the ring road overpass, with litter accumulating near the traffic lights and from the main road after being discarded by passing drivers, and collected a few wheel trims and lots of cans and bottles. We continued up Lamport Close to drop off some full refuse sacks (just 3 here), before carrying on towards Kincardine Road and Gartside Gardens.

It seemed to be a hotspot for laughing gas use, with balloons and empty cannisters (13 or 14 in total) found in the car park of the Salvation Army building to add to their growing box of empty cannisters near their refuse point. More were to be found on the outskirts of the park, likely dumped by nearby parked cars.

Within Gartside Gardens, clearly a party had taken place with a pile of half open black bin bags near the entrance, while a lot of litter was splayed around the park, a lot having been blown from already full bins or from people placing it near to a bin, expecting it to magically stay close by to be collected... In this case we collected another 8 laughing gas cannisters and 9 full refuse sacks, leaving the park in a much tidier state than it was before.

12 sacks, over 20 laughing gas cannisters, and all of it picnic, takeaway, or packaging related. We got a lot of thanks from some of children in the park and from some passing drivers as we were litter picking. Gentle jog too despite the heat.

Makeshift session with Ben involved with organising Pint of Science this week. Just the single runner carrying nearly 6 kg of tins, cans, UHT milk, and some noodles, rice, and packets of pasta sauce. Heavy bag in the increasingly warm weather!

Afterwards, a short run from the Tesco in Stretford to Gorse Hill allotments where Peter was making a start to weed some of the beds, plant out lots of runner beans, and heavily water the polytunnel and beds with the warm temperatures expected over the bank holiday weekend. The corn, carrots, and lots of beans seemed to be enjoying the growing season, with a few potatoes showing promise too, which we covered to some extent.

Likely sessions coming up to help with watering and maintenance on the plot. The garden at the Studios had certainly seen a few changes too, with a new fence and pond!