What happens at the Powerstation after dark? A rabble of monsters disguised as GoodGymmers descend to cause chaos... This evening this involved shifting weights, undoing Frankenstein's bolts and lifting heavy shelving into a new position - the next step in centre manager Danielle's dastardly plans with the gym!

...midges.

A beautiful April evening, except for the swarms of midges, for GoodGym Richmond’s second Monday of the month Group Run task at our sponsored plots in Buccleuch Gardens, Richmond.

But I guess, particularly as this was a WWF/GoodGym ‘Workout for Nature’, we should embrace the midges and the less glamorous animals, insects and wildlife that are all part of the broad biodiversity and healthy ecosystem that we are trying encourage by are gardening work.

So let’s hear it for midges Chironomidae (Diptera): their larvae and pupae are important food for fish and other aquatic organisms such as newts. And the flying midges in their adult stage are eaten by fish, insectivorous birds, bats and flying predatory insects.

Enough of midges and onto our heroic humans Anita, Chris, Jade, Lucy and Suze.

Anita, Chris, Jade and Suze. set about sweeping, weeding and litter picking around all the benches and in the borders. Our weeding focused on weeding out unwanted plants such as ivy and also three-cornered leek (Allium triquetrum) which looks very pretty, like a white bluebell, but is actually a real thug, a non-native invasive plant listed on Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act (making it an offence to introduce the plant to the wild in the UK).

Meanwhile Lucy, who had completed 16km of her London marathon training to get to the task, still had the tenacity to prick-out and pot-up a whole tray of salvia ‘blue admiral’ seedlings, before she headed off into the dusk to clock a further 3km.

A chatty run along a very quiet riverside this evening as we welcomed Zak to his first experience with GoodGym during his visit from Bristol. 😁

Our destination was St Christopher's Fellowship in East Twickenham where we often go to help in their large and quite unruly garden. We made a plan for ourselves with some extensive weeding in the vegetable patch and against the main building, Anita's monumental effort sorting out the compost heap and plenty of tidying up in the front drive.

A successful 45 minutes later, everything looked more manicured, even if our gloved hands did not!