On a very agreeable Sunday morning, we had a sweat inducing task, in a cute hidden gem of a park.

That pesky grass was up to its usual tricks of encroaching on the paths, so the it was time to edge back - an Urban Green classic.

We took one side of the path each and quickly got to work; getting some lovely comments from people of the local community as we toiled.

I'd highly recommend visiting this little park if you are ever in the area, as well as the mini nature spot in the bowling green next door :-)

There was a fantastic turn out this morning for a gardening task with Urban Green in Exhibition Park. Ranger Rhian had two large flowerbeds near Wylam brewery that needed weeding ready for some new plants.

We split in to two groups and quickly began to tackle the weeds. Liz, Debbie, Sam and I attacked the thistles and weeds. Red stalks out, wood stalks stay!

Louise, Dan, Ellie, Tom and newcomer Matt took on the bigger bed supervised by one of the resident swans.

The two hours flew by and the flower beds looked fantastic. Check out the pictures to see the difference.

The morning ended with an impromptu social in Urban Green Cafe.

There's nothing like "taking the edge off" a stressful week than spending a Saturday morning on an Urban Green/Good Gym task :)

Mike took Max, Chris and myself to the "edge of reason" by giving us 2 tasks - edging a path (taking it to nearly double its width) and then also edging the Junior skate park. Fortunately there was the usual UG provided coffee & biscuit break in between. Much appreciated.

It was a great workout, good craic, and to top it all, a lovely chat & expression of thanks from a local lady. Fab morning.

Two GoodGymers helped Urban Green in Hogdkin Park. I was a bit late filling in for Louise who was unwell and by the time I arrived Max has already starting helping task owner Mike with edge and clearing a path in Hodgkin Park near Benwell Dene.

As we were shoveling the beech tree seed pods Mike explained that beech trees don't produce seeds every year to avoid animals seeing it as a reliable food source and then year 5 years or so will produce a load of seeds which are so numerous they can't go be eaten by the animal which grantee some seed should survive.

We had a tea break half way though and Mike showed us Benwell Dene, which despite me doing a number of tasks with Urban Green in the park I had never seen. It is a beautiful hiden path by the dene which feels completely different to the rest of the park.

We then carried on cutting back and edging another main path in the park, cutting the vegetation back and trimming over hanging trees to make it use to use the paths. Mike also cut back a dead ash tree which had feel vicitum to ash dieback. Which lead to a discussion about if they can breed ash trees which are resistant and how a similar thing had been done with Elm tree which are resistant to Dutch Elm disease.

When we were done it was great to see what difference we had made in the park with the two paths we had worked on looking a lot clearer!

Today we were back at exhibition park to help out Urban Green. The mission for today was to tidy up the arch beside the urban green cafe and the play area and fill in any gaps in the tunnel. It was a nice sunny morning and we got to work trimming the willow hedges and weaving them into the existing arch whenever possible. It's definitely a multiple day job but we did manage to trim around a lot of the arch and then clean up all the branches and leaves.

Working with Mike (Urban Green), Damu and myself cut back overgrown plants around the playground and along the paths. Very satisfying.....though, what had to be the highlight of the morning, was watching Mike "fish out" a Wheelie Bin from a pond. As always with Mike, (the fount of all knowledge ), we now know that a new wheelie bin costs £27, there were 56 set alight last year (what is that about??) and that their axles don't melt! Finally, kudos to Damu who has done 2 GG tasks in 2 days this weekend and currently wears the "best pun" crown but failed to give one for me today - as you can tell :)