A big welcome to Viv who came to her first group run session tonight.

We warmed up with some frisbee which included confusing the caretaker who was (rightly) worried about his windows. Birthday girl (& international athlete) Louisa was our most consistent thrower and catcher.

Once it got a bit too difficult to see the black frisbee we decided it was time to dig into Jen's baking for a sugar high to power us through our gardening task.

The gardening club had focused on clearing the leaves so we were left with the "adults only" task of weeding the planters and pulling up the nettles. We're definitely getting better at protection.... fewer stings than previous visits but plenty of swearing when we were caught! The brambles (other names may have been used) were hiding and also tried to inflict injury. No incident forms were needed fortunately. Good job there's not a "near miss" form with close calls on falling into a hole & emergency stops with the bag full of nettles.

The compost heap had many visits and the old pond area is much clearer. Hopefully we'll get some cover down so that the roots die off too.

Tonight's interesting fact courtesy of quizmaster Tony was Levi Roots' real name.... Perhaps Keith Valentine Graham's sauce wouldn't have sold quite so many units!

More nettle battles tonight at MX.

We met another member of staff from school today and her team is going to be out in the garden once a week from September which will definitely help.

We filled the big garden waste sack up twice, a bin bag with rubbish and gathered up far too many plastic bottles (I saw the caretaker as we left and he's going to collect them for recycling)

While working hard we learnt some new vocabulary from Lucy, shared the croissant stealing seagull story with more people and used a variety of pain relieving words when we were taken by surprise by a rogue nettle!

I can confirm that the gloves were nettle proof but I clearly need an entire outfit made of this material as I have still managed to get stung 🙄

Thanks to Val for most of the pics (a great groupie "shoot, shoot") and to Harry for the pic of Lucy wrestling a long root.

Great work by everyone tonight, thanks your help!

A warm welcome to our first tourist for over 2 years... all the way from Sheffield, Max. Make sure you give him a cheer!

It was just as lovely to see everyone else too, of course! We were a bit dismayed to see how much the nettles had grown since the last time we were in the garden, so the main mission of the day was to try and get them somewhat under control...

Angela, Jo, Max and Paul got to work chopping and hoeing and covering lots of ground. Val and Charlotte picked up the rubbish as it was uncovered. Lots of pens were found as well as a softball and tennis ball. Judy weeded the planters and planted some geraniums.

Tony was king of the keys and equipment which was fine until he had to put the equipment away and the gates were locked!

Everyone was allowed out eventually and we all got home in the light.... we love the light evenings!

Alternative working title Lino Ritchie. Apologies for any songs that may now stay in your head for a few hours.

Tonight we found the bottom of the pond!! It was an exciting moment as the lining of the pond was revealed - although there were plenty of theories as to what it was before "pond liner" was settled on.

We carried three new empty planters round from the side of the school into the garden and the challenge was to first clear a piece of ground flat enough for them to sit on, then to fill them with the nicely composted soil from the old pond site. A classic GoodGym task. These will be planted up with veg seeds by the school kids in the next few weeks and the wellbeing garden will begin to take shape.

We also unearthed a huge amount of old plastic including many crisp packets. We had a good reminisce about old crisp flavours, especially the anti social ones and discovered that we had a split in the Monster Munch camp - roast beef vs pickled onion!

A small number of GoodGymers tonight but a good solid amount of lifting, shifting and digging done.

First visit of the New Year to the Miltoncross garden.

We started with a game of domes and dishes with a narrow victory by the yellow team! That got the heart rates up ready for raking, digging, picking and moving.

Maura filled a bag with litter including a sports water bottle and flowers / that had come over from the graveyard.

Charlotte got an unexpected workout from the heavy leaf bag, Rosie kept piling up the leaves and branches while Jen got her favourite job of chopping down a tree! Rachel was collecting the branches and the litter that was unearthed.

Tony pulled up the decking which Sam, Angela and Jo got their 10000 steps in just by taking it around to the bins.

A very productive evening with the area looking so much clearer than when we first went there.

Thanks to Jo for the punning title!

Tonight's return to Miltoncross was an on, off, on task but fortunately we managed to be allowed in AND the football floodlights were on so we could see what we were doing.

Jen was presented with her 200 good deeds tshirt and managed to fit it over her fleece so we could all enjoy the excellent design work from Angela.

Rosie wore her festive leggings and Maura wore about 10 layers!

Most GoodGymers are counting the days till their time off with Tony winning, only having 1.5 days left.

Rachel and I collected 2 bin bags of rubbish and everyone else continued clearing up the green area with many many trips down to the compost with very full garden sacks!

News was shared and the world was put to rights. We reflected on how much clearer the green space is compared to when we started. We will be back next year to carry on.

To finish off the evening, we moved on to the astro for a rendition of the 12 days of Christmas complete with exercise actions. Wilson was particularly impressed with the singing!

Heroes were then shared and the final group run of the year was done. There is still the quiz on Monday and many a community mission going on, GoodGym never stops! Listings are here.