It was the final task of a series trying to clear all the invasive Himalayan Balsam plants from the Lewsey Brook, one of the tributaries of the River Lea. Teaming up with Jen from TCV and some of Luton's regular conservation volunteers.

It was also the first task for Niamh joining us after seeing the session on Facebook and Petros returning for his second session.

With the continued drought conditions the brook was bone dry so we were able to climb in without getting wet and hunt for the balsam plants. They got pulled up, roots snapped off and left to dry out on the brook side. This section of the brook was thankfully quite light on the balsam so we got it all done in a couple of hours and was able to collect lots of litter as well and take a walk back upstream to double-check the areas we'd done in previous weeks.

This session completed the length of the brook, a whole kilometer! We'll see what pops up next year but we've prevented loads of new seeds from being laid so hopefully there will substantially less to do next year!

This week we welcomed Zoe to her first Goodgym session and delighted to have a newbie on board we warmed up and headed off to the 61 football club, a 2.5km jog away.

On the way we were treated to a clear view of the partial solar eclipse and enjoyed the cooling effect of the dimming light on an otherwise hot evening.

On arrival at the football club Richard directed us to the newly built pitch-side dugouts. We grabbed the bucket of paint and rollers and got stuck in, turning the grey blocks a nice brick red.

Working close together we had a good chat and got to know each other a bit and catch up with all the latest in our lives as we worked away on the painting. Time flew and before we knew it the walls were red, time was up and we had to wash up and hit the road again. There's one more dugout to go so we'll be back to finish the job!

There were just the two of us helping out at FoodCycle, but we had a devilishly good time in the kitchen. Alongside our other FoodCycle kitchen volunteers, Gill took a lead and Lucie ably assisted her as a very helpful 2nd in command. Gill had an idea to pimp up what could have been a plain egg salad, and Lucie did an amazing job if making the filling to turn those boiled bad boys into devilled eggs. Starter completed, Gill got on, with help from the team, with making baked rice and a vegetable tagine, while Lucie made a delicious fruit compote to accompany some freshly baked brownies. We had 24 guests but most had seconds or took an extra portion home for another day, and there was lots of positive feedback.

It was Gill's turn to lead our small group run tonight, and after a quick warm up we headed off along New Bedford Road to Cowslip Meadow. The mention if Golden Rid by Dave had lead some if us into a false sense if security, as our usual Golden Rod patch is not too far out of town. So finding out that we would be running twice as far was a bit of a surprise. But the temperature had cooked and it was a lively evening to be running. On arrival at the What Three Words location we couldn't soot any if the dreaded weed and had just about resigned ourself to a fruitless mission when the combination of Ella's eagle eyes and Gill's first encounter with Google Lens reassured us that we had found our target. The ground was either relatively soft, or our pulling power was in max strength as pulling out this invasive pest was relatively simple and we had several piles to take back to the gates. The run back was even more enjoyable, with the slope now in our favour, and the sun dipping down further, and it was good to know we'd got just over 7km under our belts too.

6 goodgymers did great work at serving meals to 38 adult guests and 6 children. Lucie and Gill came up with an amazing menu while Sam, Abdulrahmen,Hussein and Neill did a great job of setting up, welcoming, hosting and clearing up. Starter: Roasted vegetables meze with tahini dressing. Main : Veggie burger, carrot and parsnip chips with lettuce and cucumber garnish. Dessert: Blueberry sponge with fruit sauce.

its celebration galore at the cafe this month! We had lots of food but sweat it all out whilst cleaning .