Who needs the gym when you have an overgrown flower bed and its underlying weed membrane to clear?

This is certainly the case at Holy Trinity Lamorbey Church where we are helping to tidy up the flower beds along their perimeter wall. Left untended for a long time, brambles and weeds have well-and-truly taken over and this was our second visit to continue the makeover.

This time we were tackling a stretch next to the border that we'd cleared on our last visit.

Alongside parishioner Kevin, team Lisa-Sarah-Karen-and-Susan cut back and dug out the greenery then heaved out the buried and tired weed membrane, wheel-barrowing all the debris to a collection point in the woodland area. It was a good workout in the evening heat 💪.

The bed now looks much tidier and the newly-exposed soil will have a chance to recover ready for planting in due course 🌻 .

At the same time, team Johhny-and-Martin tackled a few cheeky brambles 🌿 that had grown back in the patch we cleared last time. It took lots of effort digging out the roots but hopefully they'll be kept at bay for a while.

From our arrival at 7pm to our finish at 8pm the difference was clear for all to see. So it was time to open some bubbles 🍾 and cut the cake to mark Lisa 's 50th good deed. The celebrations continued with a toast at the micropub across the road. Well done, Lisa 🎊.

As an unexpected surprise across the evening Susan told us that her parents were married in this church 💒. This gives us an extra-special reason to keep lending a hand here 💕.

We'll be back again on Wednesday 13 August so sign up now to join us!

This was our first time at Holy Trinity Lamorbey Church where the parish administrator, Pat, and parishioners Annie and Rosie (with her children), gave us a warm welcome and explained the task: clear a tangle of brambles and weeds from a flowerbed, and pull up the underlying plastic membrane, if possible.

With the church summer fayre taking place in just a few days, the pressure was on to make things look neater and tidier!

We were a hive of activity as we jumped to it: cutting back the growth, digging out roots, heaving up the membrane, and barrowing the cuttings to a compost area.

We downed tools at one point to rescue a toad and carefully move it to a new home in nearby bushes 🐸.

We think we also disturbed a bumble bee nest as there were lots of them buzzing around our legs. Simon got stung through his socks twice, ouch! 🐝🐝🐝

Several passers by stopped to comment on our work - the red GG tshirts certainly make us stand out!

And what a difference between before and after! We cleared the whole area and we could hardly bee-lieve how much we got done in just an hour.

We'll bee back again across the summer to help with more tasks in the garden. Hop along and join us.