8 goodgymers spent Saturday morning transporting a massive 240 bags of compost in an epic feat of strength! It was great to welcome Buz to her very first session :)

It was the first of our monthly trips to help out at Doddington community roof garden last night, and after a brief discussion about whether it was going to snow or not at the beginning of the night, little did we know what we really should have been ready for...the rain. Cold, wet rain....

Still, it didn't hold us back. We did our warm up and had a quick discussion on food we can't stand which included all the classics - mushrooms, beetroot, and anchovies. After a 2km run down to the garden we arrived and Malissa quickly went through all the jobs that needed to be done. The joy of coming back on a regular basis is that we can see the garden evolve and grow, we start to know the tasks that need to be done and when, and we can really see the difference we are making.

The main job was digging so we divided up into groups to tackle the removal of soil so that when the compost arrives this weekend it can go straight in. If you fancy a great upper body work out and massively helping out at the garden, then on Saturday morning at 11am we have a massive task carrying up no fewer than 800 bags of compost donated by the council. Hope to see as many as possible of you there!

Meanwhile, there were several other tasks being completed elsewhere, including giving a buddleia bush a good pruning, moving several plants in the St John's Wort family, and spreading woodchip. We also moved many, many trugs - more of a challenge than we had expected given they had no handles and the rain made them really slippery.

By this point we had achieved a lot but we were thoroughly wet and becoming uncomfortably chilly so we decided to call it a night. We were determined not to finish without any fitness at all though, so Sophie led the group in a token squat session before we headed off.

Some of us went on to do a fun pub quiz where very weirdly two separate GG teams ended up with the exact same score of 103 points, coming joint third. That's a little sprinkling of GG magic right there.

Next week the task is yet to be confirmed but we will be having a session as normal so watch this space. Have a great week GoodGym, and stay warm!