It was one of those odd days in Bath, when things are a little different. Missing were the bleached jeans and t-shirts of modern times, replaced by Empire waist gowns, breeches and top hats. Turns out, it is approaching Jane Austen's 250th birthday. So as much as Bath celebrates its connection with Jane Austen everyday, this year it's Celebrating with a big C.

Sydney gardens, I was informed today, is not far from where Jane lived; doubtless she would have frequented this pleasure garden aplenty in her time.

For the GoodGym gang that arrived today though, it was the usual red GoodGym T-Shirts and suitable clothing for gardening. Cosmo, Tanya, Bennath and Meyrick helped our Friends of Sydney Gardens with clearing the area around the ruins of the old outside dining room. We'd cleared this earlier in the year for a visit by the Mayor, but it had grown again, all our work undone by nature's persistence.

It's getting cooler now we leave summer behind though, so with any luck it won't grow back too much before spring.

Also finished moving the last of the sand up to the play park, so there was a sense of completion in today's work.

We welcomed new GoodGymmer Jo this sunny Sunday morning, at one of our regular and favourite gardens! Excellent teamwork made short work of our task of chopping down Cardoons and then arranging them in the flowerbed, so they can seed themselves over the winter ready for next year's growing. We then moved onto pruning hedges to make a bird box accessible, and help maintain the garden. In between all the pruning, we took the time to admire the wildlife friendly pond, which GoodGym helped to give a new lease of life to earlier this summer. We even spotted a dazzling dragonfly enjoying its new home :) photo credit Meyrick and Kathy. Our host Kathy then very kindly brewed up some 'tea of the garden' for us to enjoy, just as the rain came down! Thanks Meyrick and Jo for your hard work, hope to see you at the next mission!

As I have frequently opined of late, this is one of the greatest summers I can remember. I've done a bunch of really cool stuff, but it's the consistently hot, dry weather that has been the catalyst for so many of those things.

Sunday morning, heading into town for another GoodGym mission at Sydney Gardens it was already hot at 10am; in fact, I almost borderline agreed with the voice in my head that said 'sweltering'.

Sydney Gardens, let me educate you, the gardens are the only remaining eighteenth-century pleasure (or "Vauxhall") gardens in the country. The Friends of Sydney Gardens meet twice a month to work on the grounds and we attend to help them.

This week, we welcomed a newcomer - Bennath, who joined Meyrick at the meeting point on the railway bridge.

This week's job was the same as last time, wheelbarrowing more sand form the storage area to the children's play area. A significant task indeed, as per the unwritten GoodGym rule, 'The further the distance, the heavier the load'. Fortunately, there were a couple of sand bags that had been delivered right next to the play area, which allowed us to make a much greater contribution in the hour we had, than is usually the case.

The kids love this play area, so whatever we can do to keep it awesome, so much the better.

This was apparently a near record breaking day as far as temperatures go, this scorching summer showing no signs of easing off. It actually reminds me of being on holiday as a child when it's this warm, tugging gently on the threads of the past, images of me running across a beach in the south of France aged ten and full of possibilities.

So I was in a great mood when I arrived at St John's Court, a sheltered home for over a hundred residents, to be greeted by Peta and Anne and instructed on what help they needed for this visit.

We were back out where we had been last time, at the front entrance but this time trimming bushes and tidying up the beds to make the front of house look great.

GoodGymmers Ruth, Emily, Kam and Meyrick were in superb form as usual and we made an enormous contribution to this piece of work in the short time we had.

We are due back there again in September for anyone interested, this is one of our great repeat missions and helps improve the lives of a great many people.

I have to admit, this Summer still has plenty to give. It's already been a wonderful summer, at least if you don't have to worry about crop yields and test wickets. Even at 10 am this morning it was sweltering, this mainly due I think to the total lack of wind.

Undeterred, three GoodGymmers arrived fully committed to the cause. Aaron, Cosmo and Meyrick gathered together and met our contact with the regular Friends of Sydney Gardens crowd and this time we were back on sand duty.

You see, there is a quite fantastic play area for the kids, but the sand keeps disappearing, probably being redistributed by playful hands and carried away on uncaring shoes. Inevitably, this sand needs replenishing, and that is where we came in.

This is one of those situations where the heavier the substance that needs moving is further away it is stored. So in the tiny hour we had, much of that time is spent moving the sand, in wheelbarrows, most of the way across the park. I suggested to our leader there, that if the sand could be delivered to a location closer to the play area, we could probably do the whole thing in an hour, as it was we probably managed 15%. It was a sic work out though, we were all wiped out by the end.