What an amazing turnout for this evening's session to help at Wessex Primary School, particularly considering we didn't meet in our usual start location. Just when I thought I knew how many we were, more would arrive! Maybe we could call ourselves the Countless of Wessex?

A very warm welcome to Helen, Rachel, Jennie and Alison, who joined us from the school community. It was also great to meet Sion and Sam, who Jenni invited from Reading to find out all about this weird and wonderful thing called GoodGym. We hope you can launch in your area soon - we'll definitely come and visit when you do!

A great big cheer for Taskforce member Louise, who organised our task for this evening and recruited many of our newbies from the school community. Top marks and a gold star for you!

Many thanks also to Mr Beaven and Mrs Pope, who welcomed us to the school, treated us to some jelly babies and stuck around until the end. We talked about a return visit later in the year to help with pond area...can't wait!

During the first part of the session lots of us went for a run or walk around Cox Green. The walkers did a scenic 2km (we passed not one but two Co-ops!) loop, and the lucky runners did similar but with a few extra back and forths to give the walkers time to catch up. This helped us to arrive at the task all warmed up and ready for action.

Lou did a great job of rapidly dishing out tasks to eager GoodGymers, and soon enough everyone was busy. Jennie, Alison, Georgeta, Rachel, Gillian and Helen bravely tackled brambles in a nature area, Adam, Clara, Jenni and Chris bravely tackled brambles next to a fence and Angela and Sara made speedy work of sawing down an overgrown shrub.

Everyone else focused on an area in the middle, where jobs included emptying a raised bed of plants (behaving like locusts), sanding a fence and bench, and painting the fence. An intriguing mix of small toys was also uncovered in the process.

Many hands made the to do list disappear fast. Lou has already received a big thank you from Mrs Corbett, who teaches in the area where we were working. She plans to take the children out first thing to admire our work.

So why the reference to smarty pants? Are we calling Lou a smarty pants because she organised such a bumper evening? Or is Jenni a smarty pants for bringing her Reading homies? Maybe we're all smarty pants for going back to school? Or should that be smarty 'paints' because of the awesome job the painters did blitzing the fence?

Well all of these would be excellent guesses, and quite true, but no. The title pun celebrates the GoodGymer who got paint on her trousers and didn't want to get it on the seats in my car, so had the bright idea to remove her trousers. I couldn't park right outside her house, so (looking quite a lot like an Olympic track star) she did a sprint finish down the road in her pants. What a memorable evening!

There were only five of us this evening, but we still got heaps done!

Gillian and I car shared to the start, where we met Clara and Lou, who had both arrived on foot. The four of us warmed up and then headed off on our walk/run. I normally call it a walk/run because some people walk and some run, but this evening really was a walk/run for all of us. We covered 2.2km round Cox Green in 19 minutes, alternating 1 minute running with 1 minute walking. Considering three out of the four of us have walked at every session since Christmas, I'm really proud of what we achieved! And we can build on this next week...

When we got to the school it was really great to see Jess, back for her first group session since breaking her hip. Hip hip hooray for Jess!

We then met our task owner Mrs Eves, who showed us what needed doing. Amy and Jess headed to a nature area to clear bricks, paving slabs, and rubbish such as broken chairs and old pots. Lou and Clara did a beautiful job of clearing leaves and weeds from a long flower bed, and Gillian went into battle with some bushes in another bed, which needed clearing.

After about 30-40 minutes, Jess, Lou, Clara and I were finished, so we joined Gillian in her battle. She had valiantly cut back all the bits that could be tackled with secateurs, clearing the way for us to get to the root of the problem and dig for victory with a couple of forks. Jess was rooting for us as we then worked as a team to cut, dig, twist and pull out two of the shrubs. Very rewarding work - even if e were all bushed by the end!

Mrs Eves was really pleased with what we got done. The long bed tidied by Clara and Lou will be used to plant lavender and the area where we cleared the bushes will be used for a display board.

Just in case anyone is wondering, we didn't see the goats this evening. They are on holiday for the Winter. I'm not kidding!

Tonight was a lovely mix of goats, beans, torch-light, dance music, laughter, weeding, wheelbarrows and walking!

We met at our task location Wessex Primary, where we were welcomed by the resident goats. We had a quick bean-inspired warm up to get us in the mood for some gardening, then we grabbed some tools from the super organised eco garden shed, fired up our torches and went into battle with the weeds.

While we worked, the Achieva dance fit class got going in the hall next to the garden, and it was like they were putting on a show for us. The music gave us a boost and some of us were even inspired to book in and throw some shapes next week! Not the Wednesday class obviously because #WednesdayNightIsGoodGymNight, but we hear the Tuesday class is very similar.

Many thanks to Georgeta, Gillian and Sheila for keeping us on the straight and narrow in our game of 'is that a weed or not?'. Well done Rachel for rescuing Clara when she got into a fight with a raised bed, and thank you Jen for rescuing me when I found myself unexpectedly doing the tango with a weighty tub of garden canes. By the end of the session we had cleared lots of barrows of weeds and had a barrow of laughs!

Huge thanks to Wessex for welcoming us, and particularly to Mrs Pope and Mrs Maskell, who showed us round, offered tea and even provided an excellent wheelbarrow emptying service.

A big thank you to Gillian for offering to lead the post-task walk this evening while I recover from injury. Hope you all enjoyed your Cox Green loop!

Finally well done to Sheila and Rachel for doing double good deeds today! You can read about their morning of mountaineering at the Baby Bank in Sheila's report bu clicking here.

Hope to see you all next week for more fun and games. We are off to Holyport FC to help their volunteers with some grounds maintenance. Click here for full details and to sign up.