Five of us braved the windy wet evening to continue with the painting that we started for Get Cycling on a group run a few weeks earlier. Having previously done a white undercoat on the whole room we were given a section to do the grey top coat for. Luckily the really expensive bikability bikes had been moved to the other side of the room this time. There was an initial confusion of greys between the pots that meant some of the darker door grey got used on the top band instead of the mid grey although luckily not confused confused with the third pot of lighter bottom grey. We did go over it when it had sort of dried but it still didn't quite match the rest of the band. Abigail and James did the top section as they were the tallest, leaving Angela, Antonia and Laura to do the lower parts. Despite a bit of a paint splattered floor Joanne seemed happy with our efforts. Her young son came and gave us encouraging feedback as we painted which was an added bonus.

5 GGers met Teena at York Hospital Outpatients Garden to plant up their lovely new raised beds (which had been installed since out last visit). A small herb garden, lots of lavender, a few palms and a lot of flowers were planted, along with one tiny ‘characterful’ Christmas tree.

Once all the plants were in, we spread lots of mulch around whilst chatting away (and hopefully not distracting the staff who had their windows open. Thankfully the weather held off so after a quick water of the plants we were done.

7 GGers met Griselda from York Hospital to help prep two gardens for renovation next week. The first garden had some plants (mainly bamboo and grasses) which needed removing and the second garden needed the ornaments and benches removed.

We cracked on with garden number 1, where the instruction was to 'clear everything' - but Max was slightly disappointed that he could only prune the bush with the pretty white flowers on, rather than hack it to pieces.

Ben, Paul and Antonia got down to digging up what can only be described as chunks of bamboo and adding them to the pile, whilst Ellie, Tay and Emma attacked the grasses. Soon, the garden was cleared of plants (but looking arguably messier) so it was on to garden number two!

Garden 2 is behind the chaplaincy, so has lots of lovely pots and memorials that needed to be kept safe. The goal was to carry them to (another) garden for safe keeping, so soon there was a little line of Goodgym Army Ants carrying things back and forth to pass through an access window. Fortunately, Griselda had warned the cleaners and so we didn't feel too guilty (but still felt a little guilty) about the trail of mud!

Once we were done (although Ellie is still confused about how the benches went though the window), it was time for goodbyes and onto lunch!

Meeting in Rowntree Park for round 2 of helping out on the new wildlife section 9 goodgymers (some fresh from Park Run, others fresh from bed) met others from the friends of Rowntree Park to keep working on a newly cleared area that will increase the diversity of wildlife and hopefully become an area that can be frequently and visited by all comers to the park. Whilst there were a variety of tasks it was the GGers that were given the heavy digging tasks, where we continued to turn over a sizeable area that later this week will be sown with wild flower seeds. Meanwhile others were planting in 2 new pond areas and David started his audition for the new Poldark series with the scythe. Any task that features tea and cake is well received so after a nice cuppa and cake we finished off the digging. Still plenty to do there, so no doubt we will be back. Oh and did I mention that we must have seen at least 20 frogs that were individually encouraged out of the way of the scythe with no injuries for frog or GGers…