It may have been (very) soggy but that wasn't going to stop four hardy GoodGymmers from helping out at Sydney Gardens.

Two big dumpy sacks of play sand had been delivered to nearby* the children's water and sand playground which was strangely devoid of actual children. Which gave GoodGym a perfect opportunity to be big kids!

The luxury of three wheelbarrows meant we quickly split i to roles of loaders (Felicia and Melanie), barrower (Cosmo) and raker (Evie) all trying to keep up with everyone else. At times the rain eased off but kept coming back with a vengeance.

We managed to shift close to the whole two bags but prioritised channel clearing at the end of our session to try to free some of the water that should cascade down through the playground rather than just making a series if huge puddles, so shovelling and trowelling wet sand was our toddler-like finale - great work!

Now to dry out...

*not quite near enough

8 Goodgymers spent their evening at one of their more regular haunts dubbed on the website as ‘a Secret Garden’ (in Widcombe). No, it’s not THE Secret Garden, you won’t find Mary Lennox playing there. Rather, it’s an old Baptist Burial Ground looked after by The Bath Preservation Trust, cheery! (It is actually quite lovely).

As a few GoodGymers ran their way to the Garden/Burial Ground, discussions were had around what our tasks today would be, as we had a larger group than normal. Would we or wouldn’t we be removing bind weed and brambles? How do we feel about pulling up bind weed and brambles? Suffice to say, and you won’t be surprised, we did pull up an abundance of bind weed and chopped down many a bramble. Some of us felt sad for said plants, I suppose they’d gone to all that effort to choke the life out of the other plants, and bind weed flowers look pretty. The brambles were even showing off their bounty of blackberries. We mused about uses for bind weed: could we fashion a rope? Did it have medicinal properties? Interestingly the leaves do contain a molecule that can treat hypertension and is also known to be a diuretic, among other things… so not all bad! (Thank you Wikipedia) The flowers are also important for sweat bees! (I’ll let you research those and no it’s not a typo).

But I digress… all GoodGymers assembled we took to the task assigned, with gusto, and as usual we cleared a sizeable space of bind weed and brambles within our allotted hour. Making light work of it if I do say so myself. Richard, Jerr and Ruth even managed to remove a blanket of the stuff; allowing flora and fauna underneath to be free and to grow and prosper, until the bind weed and brambles take hold again, and we will be back in a year clearing the same area! We will be ready!

Another good evening’s work team! Till next month at the not so secret, secret garden.

On a lovely Tuesday evening, an Olympic inspired bunch of GoodGymmers rocked up to help with some gardens at one of our favourite venues, St John's Court.

Lining up for this race were Portsmouth GoodGym alumni and Olympic legends Katie and Tony. Previous medal winners Felicia and James had also qualified for this final, whilst new to the Olympics Evie had also made it to the final. Finally, veteran Meyrick completed the lin up.

Straight out of the blocks we were tackling the weeds in the beatifully tranquil garden area at the back of St Johns Court, right by the river. This Olympic venue is is managed accommodation for the elderly and we were also joined by Lily and Sam, residents with action and support in there hearts.

WE had a lot to do in an hour but made quick work of the two flower beds we were asked to weed, also having time to plant flowers in their place which are likely to make this a really nice gardens feature over the next few weeks.

Peripheral work was also going on as more cutting back needed doing in the general area, to help make this as tranquil and tidy an area for the residents to enjoy.

Great work by all, everyone won Gold and everyone broke World Records.