Eight GoodGymers headed to the Carrington Community Garden in Nottingham to help tidy up the area. Nestled between two residential streets, this hidden gem has been a little neglected in the last couple of years and had become overgrown, littered and had also attracted some rough sleeps recently.

As GoodGym, we had been aware of the gardens for some time but did not know who to contact about helping there. So when we saw Peter, whose daughter had just moved nearby, asking on social media for help in sprucing it up we jumped on board, along with some other local residents and councillors.

Now, all GoodGym tasks are great, but you know it's going to be a good one when you are greeted on arrival by a) a dog and b) an ice lolly and muffins, even before we had done any work (although some had run/cycled in the sun so were more deserving!). This is what happened when we arrived and met Local Councillor, Nayab, who brought the treats and Mark from the Council who was accompanied by little Jack the jack russell. Jack kept a watchful eye on us as we worked and was particularly interested when someone rustled the paper of a muffin case (sorry, Jack, they were chocolate). We were also joined by some local residents and Councillor AJ Matsiko stopped by to have a chat and admire our work.

Peter had already made a bit of a start on the garden the previous week, but we carried on with the clear-up, spending an hour removing weeds and brambles from the path area and litter picking around the gardens. We filled two green waste bins and more, and after the hour the area already looked more open and the path more accessible. There is a still a lot to do, though, so we will be putting in more dates to return very soon.

Thank you to Mark, Nayab, AJ, Kees and his family for such a fun evening, and thanks to Peter for getting this project off the ground.

A stonking 10 GoodGymers descended on Walter Halls School this week for an evening of garden renovation. We were back in the same area we started last time that is being turned into a pond and wildflower garden.

We welcomed Peter for his first session, which he took with gusto, swinging a pickaxe like a pro, taking turns with Peter and assisted by Dayna and Rosemarie with spades.

Debbie and Aj started off by collecting stones to put in the tyre planters, then topped them up with branches and soil.

At one point, Pete M and Dayna (the two tallest people) helped remove a rainbow tarpaulin from the wooden pergola as it had seen better days and Adele wanted to repurpose the material for something else.

Nigel, Rachel and Marta planted some wild flowers in the no-dig beds we created, and Marta did a lot of watering with Debbie

Leah and one of the school staff, Emma, headed off up to the entrance to cut down some branches that had been causing a trip hazard on the paths, loading them into one of the now-empty tonne bags for use later in the planters.

Busy busy busy! Too bad ITV cancelled on us at the last minute!

GoodGym Nottingham felt all a bit Stone Age this week!

We were back at Walter Halls School with Adele, this time tasked with helping make over a patch of ground that will soon become a garden for the children to tend to.

Peter took a pickaxe to the patch marked out to become a pond. The ground there is pretty tough at the moment and Adele wants to have the kids help dig it out, so he was breaking it up and turning it over for them to make things a little easier.

Dayna, Vytautas and Rosemarie were digging holes to plant some of Adele's ferns and climbers – much tougher than it sounds with the hard soil, roots and rocks hindering progress.

Leah and Rachel were back shifting soil from a tonne-bag up on the hill down to the new garden space, and created a no-dig flowerbed with newcomer Marta getting the honours of sprinkling over the new wildflower seeds for her ingenious use of a big log as a hammer to get the little border fence into the ground.

We're back in a couple of weeks, hope you can join us!

GoodGym Nottingham were in demand this week as we had requests for help in two locations on opposite sides of Nottingham. As we can’t be in two places at once (sadly), we decided to split up and give everyone the option of attending in Sherwood or in the Meadows.

The Sherwood group returned to the Community Centre where we helped out last week as there were still a lot of jobs for us to get stuck into. Once again, Louise was there to welcome us and tell us what needed doing, and we split into 3 groups to tackle each job.

Dayna and Rachel were tasked with moving a pile of plastic matting to one of the grassy areas which will hopefully enable it to be used for additional car parking at events. The mats had clearly not been moved for a long while and had become home to various insects and spiders who will now need to find a new place to dwell. They also had to remove all the old plastic pegs which had held the mats down previously, which proved to be the trickiest and most time-consuming part of the task.

Group 2, Rose and Florence, were tasked with sorting out some of the cupboards inside the community centre. Those of us who were outside did not see exactly what this involved, but the photos suggest it may have involved moving books, suitcases and….bottles of champagne???

Meanwhile, in the back garden of the community centre Peter was tasked with trying to dig out a wooden rail that had seen better days. Unfortunately it was securely concreted in and, whilst one side came loose the other was not to be shifted. Soil replaced and copious amounts of water (not champagne) were drunk!

As the hour drew to a close, everyone helped to lay out the plastic matting before a quick group photo.

Thanks again to Louise at the Sherwood Community Centre for having us and we hope to return again very soon.

We welcomed Florence to her first GoodGym session and Dayna back for her second!