Nine GoodGymers made their way to ARC Community Centre last night, meeting Amy and Autumn at their canal-side community garden in a mission to clear the decks — or rather, the beds — ready for a season of planting.

And what better way to celebrate Amy's 200th GoodGym session than with her hosting us!

Five of us ran there from Arsenal and joined another four there. The main task was clearing a long pile of dead shrubbery from along the fence, trying to fit it into two big garden waste sacks like a game of tetris. Louise put her sawing skills to the test, beelining it for the fattest of branches, while Deirdre fiercly attacked and bashed the overflowing bag of branches with a spade, and Mehmet and Luke demonstrated impressive feats of strength, hoisting a hefty railway sleeper into place to squash down the contents of the other bag. We're not as scary a bunch as that sounds...

Steph Ducat carefully dug out burdock and prepared the ground at the end of the garden for a tree that will be planted later this week. And over at the wildflower roundabout, Caitlin, Da Marcus, and Deirdre made a (small) start on weeding.

Looking forward to returning in a few weeks to continue with their great work...

Arrived at Mrs H after a small rain shower(not much) and she had opened the gate thinking that cycled to hers. Not the case as walked there after my race, but seems she previously had the visit of Luis, James and Michelle so understand why she thought i would bike it. Today was cutting grass and Mrs H was happy to see me as thought we would not come if it rained...said if it had rained I would have done weeding as her garden also needs that to be done. So had 2 gardens to mow for the price of one : front and back. She was prepared as had long extension leads and 2 mowers but one was not working. The sun was out so it was a pleasure mowing in the sun and Mrs H took the opportunity to sit in the conservatory to get some vitamin D. She also got tea for 2 and come out to say have a break with a tea and some biscuits with me. 90 minutes in and grass cut in both gardens and started with some weeding on the path in the back garden. Lovely lady and super please with Goodgymers - she loves seeing us.