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...