On a beautiful sunny morning, 6 GoodGymers met at Holgate allotments (not St Paul's allotment as I was initially going to go...thanks for correcting me Louise!). As part of the recent works in clearing the allotments GG have been involved with, they needed a large section of the allotment dug up and the weeds cleared. To break from usual tradition, they needed a section left so it could be used as an access path by the local school, so no mindless destruction on this task!

As always, we quickly got stuck in and after an hour we had all the bed dug up and a small path left for people to walk on. What a glorious way to spend a morning.

This was our second visit to St Paul's School's new allotment which they are hoping to use for a combinationof planting and forest school activities. The weeds and brambles had been thriving in the combination of rain and sun over the last few weeks. We had to cut through a neighbouring allotment into the back of the allotment as the gate key was missing but we soon got to work clearing the weeds. Liz, Carl, Paul, Leanne, Pete, Ben and David cleared the roots and weeds out of the main part of the area where the beds are going to be, finding a few bonus spuds along the way. Barbara tackled one corner area and Laura and Ellie tackled another. After realising that they were being thwarted by buried carpet, Laura and Ellie got to work chopping back the brambles tightly wound by bindweed with Pete's help on higher bits and uncovered a water butt and a lot of broken pots. We were heckled by some local kids over the fence who decided we must be some of those "bad people" on Community Service and then proceeded to (unsuccessfully) try and pelt us with green beans. By the end of the task the area looked much clearer. Big congratulations to Ben on his 100th good deed.

Here today, outside York CVS, at 18:16 the Group Run is back!

I was so pleased to announce that after 16 months we are finally back together and we had things to celebrate!

Amy celebrated her 100th good deed today and got the honours to wear the red cape! WELL DONE AMY!

Ellie achieved her 200th good deed last Tuesday. What a massive milestone! AMAZING JOB ELLIE!

Barbara, Tim, Debs, Lucy, David, Ed and Amy were part of the team who ran, or walked as part of the RunWithPride last month. Today was a great opportunity to present them with their medals. Well done you!

With everyone buzzing and raring to go it was time for the H&S brief and a warm up including pulling an invisible rope which made people chuckle. We were visiting two projects today, so we split up in two teams and headed in two different directions.

Led by Paul and Nick, with back marking duties diligently undertaken by John team St Paul’s School Allotment went to help with ground preparation for paving slabs and planters to go in.

Part of the report written by Paul:

Ideal GG task description ''just clear it all!'’ No concerns about accidentally digging up the wrong tree or confusing weeds and plants! Soon everyone had grabbed either a spade or fork or were using their hands to pull up the weeds and clearing the overgrown areas. There was good humour all round as everyone was glad to be back taking part in group runs. Eventually the heat took its toll and the pace of work dipped for the final 5 mins, but not before the area had been entirely transformed and numerous piles of cuttings and bags of waste had been produced. Highlights included Debs, Michael & John juggling potatoes that had been dug up. Laura’s surprise at finding she was trying to dig through carpet!

Meanwhile with Pete at the front, Leanne at the back and Ellie in charge of the walking group team Fishergate Primary garden went to do a pretty similar task. Welcomed by Caroline we quickly went to clear up weeds from the planters and raised beds. The difficulty here was that we had to leave the good plants and just pull out the weeds. Fortunately we are all expert gardeners and knew exactly which plant needed pulling out, the sticky weed deffo being one of them. We’ve uncovered some black and red currant bushes with ripened fruit ready to harvest by the school children during the last week of this term. Leanne focussed on improving access to the green house and uncovering paving slabs. The task owner asked us to put all the green waste into a massive wheelie bin and Abi took the opportunity to 'rescue' 5 black bags full of weeds and sticks from being disposed of in a non recyclable way - read on to find out why. We managed to clear most of the flower, fruit and veg beds, well we have left the fruit, veg and flowers and just cleared the weeds, I think! and with 19:30 on the clock we were ready to head back to the HQ. Five of us who wanted to walk did not leave empty handed and carried the weedastick bags to a composting bin at Abi’s project, a small park conveniently located just over the road from our new pub place. Having a look at and discussing what will potentially be one of the group run tasks for this summer I lost the track of time and had to sprint back to the HQ where most of us were already cooling down. I thought I will make them stretch and perhaps sweat a little bit more so they can cool down better and after a few stretching/yoga movements we were ready to visit Golden Ball for a well-deserved post task social drink.