After the long bank holiday weekend a very impressive 25 GG Yorkies turned up to help out at Hempland Haven, a community events space in Heworth Allotments. There were no celebrations this week although many of the group had been away camping for the now annual GG Yorkie's August Weekend Away (if you've not been before, you should definitely come to the next one) and a few others had spent the day doing some serious training for their upcoming attempt at the Marathan du Medoc, which features a fair bit of wine across the 26.2 route in the vineyards of Bordeaux. Tonight we also welcomed newcomer Jenny who was doing her first ever GoodGym task. Giver her a big cheer 📣

The task was just over 3km away each way, so Vicky led a cycling group out whilst Tristan led the running group with Ed bringing up the rear. The cycling group arrived first and were joined by Nicola and James who were meeting us at the task. Taskowner Gayle got them set up with tools to get the weeds out of the cracks between the patio stones, whilst the running group were still struggling to find the right allotment space, before realising they'd stopped their run a touch too early and needed to head a little bit further into the allotments to join the others!

The team made great progress clearing as many weeds out from the cracks as possible before spreading sand onto the ground and sweeping it into the gaps. Gayle and her small assistant were on hand to provide a few bottles of water to the more thirsty GGers (mostly those that had been wine training earlier in the day), and before too long the sand was being filled into every crack the team could find. There was a mad dash to sweep it all away in order to finish with enough time for the group photo and a fab nautical themed fitness session from Tristan, which showed that a lot of us could do with swotting up on our ports and starboards, as well as our left and right!

It was then back to the Priory Street centre for a bit of a fruit and veg giveaway thanks to various gluts and some delicious cake from Jenna!

Tonight we welcomed new member Jen 👋🏼 who had heard about us on the grapevine. We also met a new task owner, the lovely Gayle of Hempland Haven - a great community allotment space. Ed made a good first impression by getting lost on the way!

Tonight our task was to weed between the cracks in the paving, to tidy up the site and make it less of a trip hazard. We also shifted some bags of sharp sand (always wondered how sand can be sharp?) ready to fill in the freshly cleaned cracks.

A very satisfying time was had by all, most weeds being easily pulled up by hand (although we also got some excellent brand new weeding tools), while we put the world to rights and strengthened our legs (probably) with lots of squatting. After a quick sweep and a final sprinkle of sand, we were done and on our respective ways home for tea.