We were back at Sunnyside Community Gardens to finish off last week's compost turning. Taking inspiration from the recent Winter Olympics, we applied avalanche rescue snow-removal techniques to moving compost: using a "V" formation with three rows of diggers passing dirt back to the next, forming a nice efficient chain effect.

Great team effort - we were able to complete the compost bay that had totally defeated us last week.

Now it's over to the worms to do work their magic...

Nice to see Ms F again after a few weeks away. Had an extended chat about all sorts. I’m about to start a new job so we lit a candle to celebrate that. I’m a well oiled machine at Waitrose now and know her preferred substitutes. Was asked to get a box of 80 tea bags but the 160 was on a significant discount so only 50p more. Always a nice part of town to go to and walk around and also popped into some new rooms at the British Museum.

For one last time as a Goodgym Area Activator, Simon met at the Arsenal Community Hub on Benwell Road to meet a huge group of keen runners, ready to help at Caledonian Park this evening. It was truly a joy to see familiar faces from years gone by (including awesome folks who attended Simon's first session 6.5 years ago at Mildmay Community Centre - I'll find the link!). Also thank you to Astra for attending your first Goodgym session- I heartly recommend attending more sessions soon- we have wonderful people in this community!

After a short (but necessary) warm up, we ran together up McKenzie Road and the Market Road slopes to the wonderful Caledonian Park Clocktower, to meet up with Miriam and Gail, our local task coordinators.

Our objective for the night (with our 26 volunteers on hand!!!), was to shovel piles of crushed rock fines into wheelbarrows, and then transport the loads over to the forest pathways on the West side of the park. This is a lovely wooded walk, that is often frequented by children, families and wheelchair users, and we want to keep this area as accessible as possible during the Springtime months.

We separated into multiple groups to cover the whole area. Team 1 shoveled the ground fines, Team 2 pushed the barrows across the park and Team 3 raked and flattened the ground around the amphitheatre (carefully avoiding the grassed surfaces and paved sections). We also had a 4th team on hand to transfer soil from builder's merchant bags, ready for Spring planting later this month.

This is a massive task, and our crew did an smashing job over the 45 minutes we had available. 26 hands, all working in tandem, really makes a huge difference. Well done!

As we closed up our evening, Area Activator Simon lead a running group back to the Emirates Stadium, while Emily and Louise lead a walking group to The Tollington Arms on Sobell Road- a great local pub that serves incredible Thai food. Together, we celebrated Area Activator Simon's final fixture as a leader, but not his final Goodgym adventure for sure!

...and as it turned out, a lot of heavy lifting and creative problem solving for Louis and I this evening.

Ms R's daughter was on hand to (try and) explain what needed moving where, but at first glance it seemed there wasn't enough space to get the double bed moved into the spare room which was the primary request, such that Ms R could then be released from hospital on her birthday.

Rather setting the pattern for the evening's entertainment, Ms R's daughter mentioned that she expected us to remove the single bed and mattress from this room...so we did that first after a bit of DIY to remove the headboard. She then mentioned that the armchair also needed removing and disposing of...so we got that parked in the hallway temporarily.

We then turned our attentions to moving the double bed from the main bedroom into the newly emptied spare room - which proved to be something of a challenge as well, because it was an Ottoman storage bed, temperamental in nature - once we removed the mattress it sprung open...We all sat on it, gathering our breath and trying to work out a plan - which is where the packing tape idea came along, and we wrapped as much tape as we could to keep the bed shut, turned it on its side and moved it as quickly as we could to the spare room before it sprung open once again.

This then left a sofa bed to be moved also into the spare room, and the return of an exercise bike, the moving of a chest of drawers, and two heavy bedside tables...and finally Ms R's daughter confirmed we'd done everything she needed. She gave us each a packet of biscuits by way of thanks.

We wished her well for her mother's return (and upcoming birthday), and went down the stairs with the remaining armchair and two cushions in our hands...and out into the welcome cool air of a Monday evening...

Lovely chat with Ms M about a range of issues. Nice to meet Louise for the first day and we worked well together to get through all the messages quickly. Learnt a lot about Chinese medicine which is fascinating even if I’m a little sceptical. Would happily go back again.