There's no calm and sedate watering session when we are involved as once Levita and myself had fetched, wheeled and carried to give these wonderful specimens their substanance we finished with our balancing act. I don't think we will be joining the circus anytime soon!

Armed with head torches, bright lights and an hour to make a difference, Kingston GoodGym headed into the darkness at Claremont Gardens to help Kingston Council improve the pond area.

After a briefing from Georgina, we split into two teams. Jonathan, Dave, Rachel and Anna tackled the invasive sumac threatening the pines, quickly filling garden waste bags with the help of saws and loppers.

Meanwhile, Jana, Tom and Georgina took on the two willows beside the pond. Tom sawed through the larger willow’s main trunk, and we chopped up the branches before turning our attention to the smaller tree.

Small willow, BIG roots! All three of us dug and cut our way around its surprisingly deep root system, discovering that the rope edging the pond was tangled in it too.

The larger willow proved too much for our tools and one saw sadly met its match during Jana’s attempt! We focused on the smaller willow instead, managing to remove most of its roots through a determined team effort.

An hour well spent, with bags filled and good progress made. A community group is being sought to help care for the gardens, so hopefully our efforts will sow the seeds for more local involvement.

Well done, everyone! Where there’s a willow, there’s a way!

This morning I arrived to help at the substanable garden plot on this allotment where I learnt their long term abjective. Then I set to work, rolling back the plastic tarpaulin after removed weeds that had grown through it, to then continue moving more of the debrie under it, also layering with woodchip to provide a nice level surface and to help combat those weeds growing back. One patch down, many more to go.
WE WILL BE BACK

This evening we all convined to water the Gg flowerbed which we found to be so dry despite the rain we have had recently. leaves were also cleared.

Tonight’s happy band of GoodGymers went to Jubilee Square to the scene of the Great Woodchip Mountain!

We shifted, spread and raked our way through a serious amount of woodchip, filling every available nook and cranny around Jubilee Square.

The result? A much more even surface underfoot, a considerably tidier and more pleasing-looking space, and hopefully a few less opportunities for those pesky weeds to stage their next invasion.

There was also time for a good old litter pick.

And a big GoodGym welcome to Adamtonight. Always great to see fresh faces joining the gang — new blood is very much encouraged!

I arrived at Beverley Park and got a quick primer from the people at FullCycle on where on the bike to place the pair of ID stickers and where to find the bike frame number.

The area quickly filled with bikes and riders, and I got half a dozen bikes labelled up while people filled out their details on a form. Others got minor repairs and advice from FullCycle. There was a nice energy with adults and kids ready to get going on their trip.

When the group and marshals set off, I counted them out of the gate and made a total of 111 people. I had a coffee in the park's cafe for an hour or so, then labelled up another handful of bikes when everyone got back.