The grass had been cut at the garden and left in a thick layer preventing new growth so we made a good headway with raking and gathering it up to give the grass a chance to regrow underneath. Paul raked it into piles while Laura piled it into the barrow to pile up on one side of the garden. Laura also helped the garden group with the watering. David came later and helped Laura for an additional half hour to rake some more of the grass and clear all of the piles of grass.

We made great progress this afternoon tidying up the beds and planting a few new plants at Holgate Community Garden. We welcomed Joss and Rebecca to their first Goodgym task. Leanne kindly brought a puncture repair kit so Leanne and David started by mending the puncture in the wheelbarrow tyre which made it a lot easier to dispose of the weeds once we'd pulled them out. Everyone else got to work weeding the beds and pulling out the cornflowers that had died and Joss trimmed along the edges. Amy planted some celeriac seedlings once we had space for them. By the end the beds looked much tidier and there was much more room for the vegetable plants and flowers to grow.

Holgate Community Garden group are trying to tidy and sort the garden over the winter ready for bringing some new life to the garden with planting in the spring. 5 of us from Goodgym helped out with their gardening session. David, Ed and Paul completely emptied one of the three large compost bins and spread the compost onto the beds. There was lots of healthy compost and worms and a few other interesting items including an item of clothing! The bin was warped and at an angle so we flattened the ground when it was emptied and reset the bin for future use. A large rat poked its head out of the second bin to see what they were doing but decided not to stick around. Cara spread out the compost and sheared around the beds. Laura helped with a range of tasks including moving a tree and removing rubbish out of the compost. The gardening session was very successful and the group were really grateful for our help.

We all had a very early start at 8am to set up the water station for the marathon and ten mile run.

After our briefing we got the table set up with lots of opened bottles of water. The marathoners came through first and kept us very busy, before a lull when we restocked ready for the ten milers.

By the time the next group came the heavens had opened but our spirits were not dampened as we had many goodgymers, from York and beyond, to spot and cheer on.

Once the last few passed we helped to tidy up then headed our separate ways.

It was lovely to welcome some visiting goodgymers too, who csme along to help. Thank you SarahGeraldine

Six GoodGymers applied themselves admirably to the task of stripping all the cladding from a large hut so it could be safely demolished. The allotment association reckoned we'd need two hours; we were done in forty minutes.

GoodGym 1 : Hut 0