Five Good Gymers, not Famous, braved an early autumnal evening to My First Steps Nursery, seeking adventure.

On arrival we were greeted by Cathy and given a very quick briefing of tonight’s task: tidy the outside area and possibly weed. Left to our own devices we used our imagination and set to. Kate and Jane started picking up all the larger items casually strewn across the green, however there was treasure to be had! Silver spoons and plastic spades were our bounty which we passed to our team members to assist them with their weeding. I said we had to be imaginative, and in lieu of any adult tools, we had to make do. Ruth did a fabulous job in the baby garden, though the weeds were unfortunately a match for the plastic spade/spoon by the end of the session, it didn’t make it. Meanwhile Richard and Tanya were messing around in the mud kitchen, though not making mud pies for us to enjoy after the task, just a general tidy and weed where silver spoons were also going for the price of gold!

We managed to remove two tubs worth of weeds, and the general area looked a lot tidier, therefore I’d say mission accomplished

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.