When the clocks go back in October, who would say no to that extra hour in bed on Sunday morning?

GoodGymers!

Five of them have beaten the autumn-winter sloth and showed up bright and early in Northfields to help Kathy and her colleagues from Ealing Transition Beeshare tame the rampant ivy and brambles in the Walmer Gardens orchard.

I can honestly say that GoodGym is threatening to disrupt my normal weekend lie-in habits - Max.

Turning into an early bird wasn't the only risk at this morning's session. As the orchard served as the location for the bee co-op's hives, we couldn't be 100% sure that no one would get stung. Kathy showed us a dividing point (an old apple tree) beyond which there was no guarantee that the bees would accept our operations. At the end of the session, it turned out that the pollinators must have been pleased with our presence or hadn't got their coffee shot yet (despite Steph inadvertently leaving his cup around them). No bee stings reported!

The Beeshare team had been working on clearing the space of brambles earlier on and had left some old cuttings, which Max offered to collect and drop at the back of the orchard. Deepak and Sevan volunteered to free the fruit trees at the garden entrance from ivy and brambles. Steph Ducat and Kash chose to cut the blackberry shoots around the big apple tree marking the border of the hive territory. In the process, they stomped on numerous uncollected fallen apples - squish, squish! - and, luckily, didn't stomp on two frogs - ribbit, ribbit! - hiding in the brambles. Steph, to keep the amphibians safe, moved them closer to the pond. At least that's what he told Kash. Should she have trusted the French guy to deal with frogs?

Ninety minutes of productive lopping, pulling and wheelbarrowing left the orchard transformed and ready for the winter break. Four GoodGymers decided it wasn't enough goodgymming for the day and jogged to Walpole Park for their second task that morning.