As this relentless dry spell continues, a team of nine GoodGymers showed up to help keep Olden Community Garden's plants hydrated and alive. Numbers had looked a bit low at first - but once it was confirmed we'd be lifting watering cans, not yet more railway sleepers, sign-ups more than doubled! I wonder which task people prefer?

Taking turns filling watering cans and circulating the 2-acre site, we prioritised the most vulnerable young plants, the pots, and all the vegetables, and smashed through the task in record time. It was particularly rewarding to see the fully constructed, impressive stage - built using the very sleepers we'd hauled across the garden on a run earlier this summer.

Huge thanks to Charles for hosting us (and instructing us so well!), and to everyone who turned out despite the heat.

See you next week? I suspect there might be some more watering on the cards...

Mr M presented his list in the form of show and tell - the bag of potatoes and the salad tomatoes were clear enough, as was the tin of vegetable soup, but I needed clarification on the 2 kilos of flour that he was seemingly requesting...it transpired after a bit of miming that what he actually wanted was two cauliflowers...

Another sunny session at Hyde park. Roughly 40 runners and guides met at Hyde park for some Guide running and no hiding. Welcome to Dennis who joined his first session as a Guide. We had the usual suspects Diana, Maria and myself Steph Ducat present.

Hot Monday night, and 6 legends made their way to ARC. We welcomed Joe to his 1st Goodgym session. Some of us 🏃‍♂️ and the others just 🧙‍♂️ at the meeting point. Mission tonight was to water the fruit trees and the beds as very hot and the plants are in need of water. The team took the water from the water butt's and we had enough time to litterpick in the garden. Making our way back we collected rubbish in Canal Square where we found empty bottles of water, energy drinks, vodka, buzz balls and plastic bags of rubbish. Da Marcus was smiling alot : was it the laughing canisters he found? Two bags of rubbish where collected. wat-er session .

I joined more than 50 volunteers from the community to help deliver The Clocktower Festival, a fantastic annual family event. We were given official volunteer T-shirts at the start of the day before volunteer coordinator Maia briefed us on our roles.

After putting up directional signs and fun fact boards around the venue, I teamed up with Sebri and Sharmin to run the badge-making booth. It was incredibly rewarding to see so many children excitedly creating their own badges and proudly showing off their artwork. It was a fun and fulfilling day, and great to play a small part in making the festival such a success.

David and I met up outside Mr D's door ready for another "bed related" mission. Once we'd been let in, Mr D showed us his Victorian era king size bed frame, and explained that because the bed had been moved from the wall a few times, the central bar holding the slats had moved, and quite a few of the slats had dropped out - as a result he'd had to place a worktop in one corner under the mattress to provide support...and a collection of slats in his hall cupboard.

After a quick inspection from under the bed, it was apparent that the central bar wasn't attached firmly to the frame, but could be re-attached if we could find the bolts holding it in place. David discovered at his end the bolt was jammed inside the cross beam, and after applying a bit of brute force, managed to get it freed - unfortunately the bolt at the other end was nowhere to be found under the bed or on the carpet.

We discussed with Mr D the various options, and agreed that we would re-attach the centre beam back in place using the bolt at one end, and a long screw at the other, which should then keep it in place. We placed coasters under the central legs to ensure everything was then at an equal height, as the four corners were already coastered.

Unsurprisingly the mattress proved to be both heavy and awkward to move, so we performed the re-slatting operation in a sequence of steps with it propped up against the frame/walls. Having built a few beds on previous missions, we both knew how to get the slats back in place, and the holding brackets re-attached to the central beam.

After quite a bit of huffing and puffing, we soon had all the slats back in their correct positions, and the centre beam firmly fixed - we explained that the foot end wasn't perfectly fixed, and that if, in the future, the bed was moved and any slats were to fall out, we would happily return to Mr D's to try a more robust repair, but we were both pretty confident that what we'd done would hold, especially with the weight of the mattress and bedding on it.

With that we dropped the mattress onto the frame, squared it all up, returned Mr D's tools to him and bid him farewell. He was delighted with our efforts (even going so far as to call us "experts"...), having given up any hope of getting the bed back to its original condition.

One highly slatisfied customer...