seven of us gathered on a nice sunny Friday evening to help a local church deliver Christian Aid envelopes. We divided into 4 groups and divided up the envelopes, which had beenvery helpfully labeled into street bundles.

After weaving our way around the local streets we popped to the Slip Inn to rehydrate.

We met Miki at the tiny forest, which is looking splendid, and admired the first of the bath-ponds he'd constructed. 2 more baths had been obtained (by non-nefarious means) and our job was to dig a hole for them each to sit into, with a spot of weeding in between when space was tight.

One site was a little easier to dig, and quick progress was made getting the mini bath in, once it's various accoutrements had been removed and plug filled with clay. We were briefly hampered by a Giant Boulder, but we quickly had it wobbled and pried out, leaving Mitch time for a quick GeologyGeek session. This was further enhanced by the lovely Pyroclastic rock we then found - ooh blue!

The second hole was seemingly into solid rock, and required a mattock followed by shovel approach. Eventually it too succumbed, and the final bath was in! After packing it in nicely, we wiped our sweaty brows and headed home successful.

Now all we need is some rain to fill the ponds..

A Group of Goodgym members dodged the stormy weather on a bank holiday Monday and had Allot(ment) of fun digging out an overgrown allotment for Tang Hall school. On an evening which was surrounded by danger of possible thunderstorms and midges in the air our goodgym team brave and strong made light work of an overgrown nettle and bramble infested allotment, clearing the way for a future haven of nature at Tang Hall school.

Witnessing Jamie deservedly win April Goodgymmer of the month award and after completing the task being subjected to a beasting by Vicky similar to SAS who dares wins, our team battled through and left feeling fitter and with a sense of pride in the work they'd achieved on what had been a beautiful sunny day up to about an hour before the goodgym task!

I'm sure we'll all sleep well tonight and wake a little fitter in the morning.

Another night, another midge death squad. This time it was the turn of Bootham Stray allotments to experience a midge swarm of biblical proportions. Note to self, if it's been raining then bring bug spray!

As tonight was well over 6k in total we met for promptly at 6.15 to set the party pace group off, joined by a small GG bike gang. Ed led the remaining GGers after welcoming newcomer Dan and numbering off by naming our favourite flat things in honour of Earth Day. I'm informed that Hydrostatic Bearings are the best flat things ever!

We arrived at Bootham Stray allotments and soon got to work turning over a disused patch that really needed a lot of work. And then the midges came...

I feel ticklish all over - Ben

On one side, Mitch's tool of choice was a 4-pronged spinny thing that he used to twist the weeds together, as if he were eating a bowl of spaghetti. Whilst the rest of the crew, armed with forks and spades, soon made light work of the turf, weeds and roots before tackling bigger things like old guttering and ground sheets.

It was an entirely different vibe over on the other side with Bec spending the night on the tiles whilst Dan got hammered, as the two of them uncovered some old tiling and the head of a hammer respectively.

As the night wore on the midges got the better of us and we called it a day, but not before a group photo and some jaffa cakes kindly provided by the task owner. We then set off back to the Priory Street Centre where Bec learnt that spinning around helps you to touch your toes, and that if you touch a wall with your armed stretched out, then put your arm down, you'll fall just short of touching the wall when you bring your arm back up. Who knew!?!?