Twelve GG Yorkies met Kristina from City of York Council on an unusually mild and pleasant Friday morning in West Bank Park. A few of us had already got some kms banked by doing some hill reps up to the nearby windmill - even Kallum who was joining us for the first time (he deserves some big cheers). Thanks to Claire for the suggestion!

Our task was to plant 750 bulbs - some smaller "tête-á-tête" narcissus bulbs and some bigger bulbs, another type of narcissus (daffodil). We were to plant in drifts, covering quite a wide area alongside one of the paths. With a variety of tools (Kristina is always very well equipped) we had all the bulbs planted in an hour. We shall look forward to seeing what they look like when they (hopefully) all come up in the spring.

We went our separate ways, walking, cycling, running, with a few of us meeting up again for the obligatory Friday crew café visit. A very pleasant way to spend a morning!

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.

We arrived at Mrs A's house and met a neighbour and the nurse to find that there had been a few changes of plan with the new bed. However, the old bed still needed taking upstairs out the way. We started by seeing if we could take the bed to pieces. Abi handily had a screwdriver on her but there were too many different types of tools needed so we moved it as a whole. It took a bit of manoeuvring to get it up the stairs, round corners and through the door frame but taking it a step at a time we succeeded.

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!