...midges.

A beautiful April evening, except for the swarms of midges, for GoodGym Richmond’s second Monday of the month Group Run task at our sponsored plots in Buccleuch Gardens, Richmond.

But I guess, particularly as this was a WWF/GoodGym ‘Workout for Nature’, we should embrace the midges and the less glamorous animals, insects and wildlife that are all part of the broad biodiversity and healthy ecosystem that we are trying encourage by are gardening work.

So let’s hear it for midges Chironomidae (Diptera): their larvae and pupae are important food for fish and other aquatic organisms such as newts. And the flying midges in their adult stage are eaten by fish, insectivorous birds, bats and flying predatory insects.

Enough of midges and onto our heroic humans Anita, Chris, Jade, Lucy and Suze.

Anita, Chris, Jade and Suze. set about sweeping, weeding and litter picking around all the benches and in the borders. Our weeding focused on weeding out unwanted plants such as ivy and also three-cornered leek (Allium triquetrum) which looks very pretty, like a white bluebell, but is actually a real thug, a non-native invasive plant listed on Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act (making it an offence to introduce the plant to the wild in the UK).

Meanwhile Lucy, who had completed 16km of her London marathon training to get to the task, still had the tenacity to prick-out and pot-up a whole tray of salvia ‘blue admiral’ seedlings, before she headed off into the dusk to clock a further 3km.

A chatty run along a very quiet riverside this evening as we welcomed Zak to his first experience with GoodGym during his visit from Bristol. 😁

Our destination was St Christopher's Fellowship in East Twickenham where we often go to help in their large and quite unruly garden. We made a plan for ourselves with some extensive weeding in the vegetable patch and against the main building, Anita's monumental effort sorting out the compost heap and plenty of tidying up in the front drive.

A successful 45 minutes later, everything looked more manicured, even if our gloved hands did not!

This evening was all about member Monika hitting a heroic 250 good deeds! Starting at the Tap we also had the pleasure of welcoming Anais for the first time.

A lovely chatty pace run led the group to the Achieving for Children Youth Centre in Mortlake where Monika was adorned with the legendary cape and presented with her group card. Monika joined in 2019 and has completed tasks in seven different areas, an achievement that could only possibly be eclipsed by her fondness for giving cheers on the GoodGym website: 14232 as of this evening! 🤣

The task itself involved moving the large gym equipment around, an almost impossible task for only a couple of people but pretty quick for 10 GoodGymmers, especially with one Super Monika on the team!

Congratulations Monika! ⚡