Lo and behold another Wednesday, another lovely GoodGym.

Leah turned up first, wearing a full puffer jacket like an absolute psychopath in the blazing 13 degree sunshine before ripping her sleeves off to make it a gilet.

Mohammed quickly signed up before the deadline, fresh from taking four minutes off his Parkrun personal best this weekend, great work! It was great to meet Dawn who had seen us on Facebook too! As a former teacher, she could be the best we've had at actually remembering people's names.

We ran to Tyrells school to get dug in. Martyn built a trench while sadly letting me know that jerusalem artichokes are actually awful to prepare so when they're finally grown they wont even be nice. Which is annoying. Russell decided to break a fork and complain about having to go to the office to work. I took some lovely photos, all of them seem to have Ben in: pogo stick attempt, sitting on a window ledge, group shot, or even just his thigh in the 'after' pic! Fay told us about a genuinely remarkable good deed she did this weekend. I'd only asked her if she had any hilarious dating stories for the run report... As we left we noticed Sallyann appeared to have a poop bag with her...no questions were asked about what she dug up.

We ran back a slightly shorter route than planned, took a photo and Dawn saved me with a lift home.

Great running and moving of earth! Bit of a wild task I know but it all helps prepare the area for the children to have as a sustainable, outdoor space.

We said a very warm welcome to Mohammed for his first GoodGym task, looking to get fit and help out, as well as improve his English. Big thanks to Richard for helping Mohammed to register on the website and to request his t-shirt. Also thanks to Russell for reminding me to do a headcount before setting off; I'm a bit rusty on the old run leading protocol. We were pleasantly surprised to see Jane without Rich, apparently he had better things to do?!

Joel and Ben led us out along the bunny walks in the sun (it was still light?!) and up to Tyrells Primary School. Our task was to excavate heaps of soil and gravel and dig out the patchwork of weed suppressing membrane underneath. Fay was already digging when we arrived, and Sallyann was on photo duty.

Everyone grabbed a shovel and started digging. Some of the membrane was easier to get at than other areas; Martin, Joel, Russell, Fay and maybe Andy, worked particularly hard on one area and dragged out a large sheet of membrane as the last triumph of the evening.

There was some question as to how hard Andy was working, judge for yourselves from the photos.

Excellent work everyone. We'll be back in May for some more hard work.

We've got a community mission at Barrow Farm on Sunday morning and the quiz at the Ale House on Sunday evening, and next week we're painting at Beaulieu Community Centre.

See you all soon,

Laurie