A great gathering of eight Goodgymmers showed up at the Phoenix for our group session. Our stalwart welcomers, Rachel and Beattie were there early, soon joined by long time Goodgymmer Richard and new regular Sheela, both getting into regular sessions this year.

We had an amazing three newcomers (is the Sky Ad working its magic?? At least one person saw it). Ben trekked all the way over from Colindale, arriving nice and early. James rocked up in good time, followed by Emma, who joined us mid-warm up.

Warmed up, and ice-broken - thanks to Beattie for the question about what we'd all been up to for the bank holiday weekend (general consensus: lots of walking!) - we jogged the short way over to Cherry Tree Wood. Inspired by Paul's absence, we had a quick exercise session with kick-squats and running in a circle. (I promised it was going to be lighter than one of Paul's attempts, but it turned out to be harder because everyone was so amazing!) Filip met us at the cafe - he's almost ready to earn his first t-shirt!

Then to the session. András, Roger and Joe set us to mulching the fruit trees. Ben took up shears, cutting the grass - Richard and I helped, using our hands. James and Emma grabbed shovels and jogged to the mulch pile near the gate, while Sheela and Beattie grabbed the wheelbarrows, to run them back and forth to the trees. Rachel and Filip helped Joe rip up the cardboard to lay over the cut grass, and a few took turns watering the cardboard and then the mulch.

As always, our amazing team effort covered twice as many trees as expected, so Rachel and Richard also had a go at sweeping the nearby paths, while James and Emma gave the mulch pile a bit of a tidy with the rakes. A great session very much valued by our hosts - András sent some before-and-after pics over as evidence of our hard work.