This week 25 glorious good-deeders graced the streets of Islington for our third journey to Sunnyside Community Gardens. An amazing community garden in Archway that is for all to enjoy and specialises in therapeutic horticulture for those with physical and mental disabilities.

Among us were first timers Nadia, Del, Katherine, Ceiran, Kim, David and David. A very warm welcome!

We split into three groups for the journey up: fast feet folk led by Graham, medium men and women taken by David and philosophers with Simon.

On our journey up we discussed how we all had an axe to grind with drivers. Apparently lots of things bug us about them: not indicating, tailgating, middle lane hogging, opening car doors on cyclists, stopping for no reason, not stopping at zebra crossings, not pulling over far enough, speeding, cutting up cyclists, and simply existing. Stupid drivers.

Anyway, we made it to the task without getting run over and met our hosts, the ever-keen Yvonne and Alan, who had plenty for us to do.

Half of us continued cutting back brambles and branches from the garden's corner. Loppers and secateurs were in action as usual, but some of the slightly thicker branches needed an AXE. Check out the photos and tell me these guys aren't having fun. There were a couple of wheelbarrows and buckets in action as a few of us carried the discarded foliage to its resting spot.

At the other end of the garden the rest of the GoodGymmers wielded shovels and spades (yeah, axes aren't the only things you can wield) and set about clearing a path of woodchip and made a gigantic pile held in place by some of the logs we shifted a couple of weeks ago.

Today's biscuit break took the form of a Bourbon Cream. Quite a popular choice.

Before heading off Richard showed Simon the "Skunk Cabbage" (Lysichiton americanus) in the garden's pond (see photos). I've read up on it and apparently "... it contains calcium oxalate crystals, which result in a gruesome prickling sensation on the tongue and throat and can result in intestinal irritation and even death if consumed in large quantities" Glad we remembered the Bourbons.

For the journey back we got into the same three groups. David's group sped off, Graham added in a few hill reps before zooming home and Simon's group played secret surges and took the blurriest selfie ever.

Another week of getting fit and doing good. Excellent tasking and running everybody. That's what it's all about.

Next week we're off to Barnsbury Square Gardens. Don't miss it!

Simon

P.S. William's head was not chopped off by an axe in the group photo.

On a lovely sunny sunday 6 GoodGymers including four mission newbies went to help Mrs O clear the ivy from her garden in Haggerston. The ivy was coming from next door and completely swarmed her whole garden. A lot of the ivy was cleared by GoodGymers the previous weekend so our mission was to finish it off and bag all the bits that was left from the previous weekend's mission.

We gloved up and got our tools together and dug in. Mission newbies, Ruth and Marcus took control of the mission and seemed to be gardening pros even bringing their own gardening gloves. They were cutting down the ivy in a style Charlie Dimmock would have been proud of, really getting in there and doing it in speedy time.

The rest of us began to combat the daunting big mound of left over cuttings from the previous weekend, breaking the cuttings down to smaller bits and bagging them up. With the sun shining and the tunes booming via Patrick's 'magical music box', it was the perfect setting for gardening. With us all chatting away, singing along to the music, and ploughing through, we didn't even notice how much we had cleared and the daunting big mound of cuttings was now a tiny little heap.

Patrick provided some sweets for a much needed sugar fix which kept us going. We proudly, managed to bag up 20 bags of ivy and cuttings. The last part of the task was getting the bags out of the garden so that council can collect and dispose it. The only way out of the garden was over the fence. With half the team over the fence and the other half of the team in the garden, we did a bit of 'to me, to you' and got all 20 bags out.

After a little chat with Mrs O we said our goodbyes and left the house, noticing that the front garden could do with a bit of GLC too. Hopefully we could all come back for another mission to help Mrs O with that too.