Last night, GoodGym Nottingham headed to Sherwood Community Centre for one of our first properly dark tasks of the year.

Our mission was to clear a seriously overgrown patch of ground so a skip can be brought in, while also cutting back enough brambles to expose a gate which was totally unusable.

Meanwhile, Nigel took on a spot of mowing on the lawn next to the car park. However, this was abruptly curtailed when a yoga class began inside the community centre and it was decided that Nigel’s mower may disrupt the peace in the yoga room.

About 15-minutes into the task, the daylight started disappearing, so out came the head torches and a few portable spotlights and on we went.

As the brambles were gradually defeated, we made an important archaeological discovery – several large stone 'megaliths'. In true GoodGym fashion, we immediately began speculating whether we had stumbled across some kind of ancient Roman settlement or one of Nottingham’s greatest undiscovered historical sites.

By the end of the evening, we had cleared a substantial area, freed the pedestrian gate from its brambly captivity and made good progress towards getting the space ready for the skip, and, quite possibly, uncovered a piece of Nottingham’s Roman past.

Well done to Walter, Giovanna, Matt, Nigel, Leah, Peter and Rachel.

Five GoodGym Nottingham volunteers headed out for a special evening that combined two very different Nottingham traditions: litter picking and Goose Fair!

After meeting up in Carrington, Leah, Florence, Tim, Walter and Rachel worked their way around the local streets filling a whole bag of litter on the way. Good deed done, it was time for a well-earned reward...a trip to one of Nottingham’s most iconic nights out!

The group made their way to Forest Rec where the bright lights, terrifying-looking rides and enormous soft toys of Goose Fair were waiting. The first priority was refuelling with some tasty fairground food. Leah and Tim decided to try out the infamous Goose Fair mushy peas – as you can see from the photo, Leah seemed more sold than Tim! Afterwards, the group wandered around taking in the sights and sounds, ruling out any desire to try any ride that involved spinning wildly in the air or a stomach-churning drop.

After waving goodbye to Tim, the rest of the group decided that the Ferris wheel would be a suitable activity worthy of our time and money. As the wheel climbed higher, the group got a bird’s-eye view of the dazzling rides below, with Goose Fair glowing in all its colourful glory. And to make the evening even more spectacular, a huge, beautiful moon appeared to be hovering in the distance over the fairground (the photos don’t do it justice).

From filling a bag with litter to floating above the lights of Goose Fair, it was a brilliant evening of community, teamwork and a little bit of fun.

That's one way to describe blood donation, I guess!

Conversation always seems to take an odd turn when we're at the ICCA. Perhaps it's all those railings frazzling our brains like the static snow on an old TV (showing my age there).

It was a night of newbies last night, with Victoria and Walter joining us for the first time and Steph Ducat joining us from Ealing for a spot of tourism – thanks for the photos!

Our Team Scrape and Team Paint strategy is still working, although we might need to bring along some new scrapers next time due to some very exuberant work! I think this will be the last time we do it in the light for this year though, so I'll get charging the headtorches! Nothing will stop us getting to the end of these railings. Except rain. Rain is bad for paint.

THINK DRY THOUGHTS THIS WINTER!

...and did we need them!

We were back at Sherwood Methodist Church for some follow up gardening maintenance as, despite the summer heatwave, things have just kept on growing!

Splitting in to two groups, Matt and Charlie channeled their inner lumberjack/tree surgeon and got stuck into some serious heavy duty pruning (not enough wheelie bins to contain their efforts!

Meanwhile, Rachel, Rachel, Leah, Florence and Peter (ably assisted by Peter's wife Jane) were clambering among the shrubs (and trying avoid the spiky plant things) to cut down the tall labernums and, yes, the spiky plant, so the church sign was visible again. With a lot of tamping down two wheelie bins were filled to the brim - how we got so much shrubbery in them is a mystery!

Thanks as always to Janice and Tony from the church for organising us so efficiently - we'll happily come back whenever you’ll have us!