Four of us braved the cold wind and rain to help Rachael from the City of York Council Environmental Team at West Bank Park. Our job was to neaten the edges of the rose garden and armed with half-moon spades we set to work, closely watched by Joey and Kali 🐶 who didn't seem to mind the rain at all. Jenna got started on a neighbouring section and flagstone path and the rest of us joined her to help finish off. We filled several very heavy bags of wet turf and mud and left these for later collection. After a good sweep, in the words of Norbert the garden robot, we left the whole area looking a lot more "neat and tidy" unlike ourselves who were muddy and soggy!

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of York, there was an overgrown allotment. Following the death of the old allotment keeper, the brambles grew tall, with thick thorny stems curling around the fortifications (piles of wood) which protected the treble-locked castle (shed).

On the third day of January, ten red-coated Goodgym heroes traveled from quite nearby to tackle the chaos left behind by the old allotment keeper. Their mission was to release the shed from its thorny prison and reveal the magical contents within. Ultimately, the shed would be cleared and the allotment patch refreshed so that the council of allotment wizards could prevent the weeds taking over the whole kingdom, and the earth could once again bear fruit (and vegetables).

The red knights arrived armed with loppers, secateurs, rakes and saws. They quickly got to battle with the brambles. They joined the allotment keeper's son, who had already used his magical keys to unlock the shed. As they cleared the brambles, fair maiden Becca pushed the cuttings into a sack to be transported away. Once the brambles were cleared, Prince Paul Kelly set to work on dismantling the fortifications for Lady Lyndsey and Benevolent Ben to burn in a roaring fire.

Meanwhile, Lady Ellie and Magical Mitch couldn't resist the lure of the open shed door which contained hundreds of years of magical gardening implements (and more piles of wood). They dutifully removed the scrap wood from amongst the cobwebs to fuel the now furious fire. Lyndsey and Ben got busy casting spells over the flames to ensure they didn't burn down the beanstalk frames which they were dancing perilously close to.

To finish their misson, it was all hands on deck to lift a heavy metal fence from the soil and carry it to the allotment entrance for disappearance.

With their efforts the ten hardy GG Yorkies cleared the way for future Knights of the order of Yorkies to continue clearing the cluttered- cobwebbed shed on the morning of the 31st day of January.

Despite the pouring rain all day and the original task being cancelled, we still had 19 hardy goodgymers turn out for the last group run of 2025!

We are very grateful to Laura for stepping in last minute and finding us a wide array of jobs at Holgate Community Garden. We had budlea cutters, compost shifters, leaf sweepers and woodchip weeders.

We soon rattled through the jobs then ended with some Christmas themed tag, where you had to sing a line from a Christmas song to release the tagged reindeer/snowman/holly/santa.

It was then back to base led by Pete and thats it for this year... except the party on Friday!