9 Goodgymers and 1 head of the PTA made their way to all saints school for a round of hole digging for the planting of trees by the children, bin emptying followed by the collection of nearly 2 hippo bags full of leaves!

It didn’t go unnoticed that it was the first task Louise has lead where it didn’t rain! which has clearly now jinxed the coming tasks

A play on the scooters found in the bike storage ensured that we were entertained and warmed up nicely before we all made our way home to warm up frozen toes and noses!

Tony, Sue and Sheila braved the coldest morning of the season so far to go and help muck out the pond at Braywick Nature Reserve. After donning waders ( all except for Sue, whose neat little size 3 feet would have been swamped in the sizes available) and long gloves, we made our way down to the pond. We had to climb over the fence as the gate padlock was frozen, and break the ice on the pond, but Tony was straight into the water in the partially-drained pond. Together with Rangers Tom and Rosie, and members of the Parks Team, we set to work digging out sludge from the edge of the pond into buckets which were then emptied out on the edge of the area. Always being mindful of not digging into the pond liner. Tom and Tony got the pump going to lower the water level and reveal more lovely sludge. We all ended up covered in mud, but had a great time helping out, and after a hose-down back at base, made our way home for a warm-up Feeling like you've missed out? More mud-moving scheduled for next week https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/help-maintain-the-pond-in-the-braywick-nature-reserve-088520ce-95d4-4ffb-aec3-600e17c6253a

Welfare visit for Mrs D

Georgeta and Sheila responded to a request to help Ms P out by assembling some flat-pack furniture. As this sort of job is usually done by the male members of our households, we were a little apprehensive, but how hard could it be? The chest of drawers that Ms P had ordered by much larger and more complicated than she had thought, and we were a bit dismayed about how many pieces there were to put together. The diagrams were a bit confusing sometimes, and we had to go back and turn a couple of pieces around, but we got there eventually despite the supplier's predicted build-time being very optimistic. Ms P was appreciative of our dogged determination to finish the job, and we eventually got all the drawers to fit, which was a huge relief!

7 Goodgymers met up in the cool, dark Oaken Grove park to help task owner Catherine move a big pile of wood chips from one end of the park to another.Special shoutout to Juli who walked over a mile with her wheelbarrow and shovel as there may not have been enough for everyone (cue collective gasp).

Sorry Juli, but the plan had changed. The gentleman who manages the park grounds had offered Catherine to transport the wood chips in his truck, saving us multiple trips with wheelbarrows. No one does improv better than GoodGym-ers; gloves on, we got to work. With head torches and steaming breaths, we were a sight in the dark parking lot!

Rachel, Angela, Ben, Juli and Diya got shovelling wood chips onto the truck while Amy and Sophie hauled themselves up on the truck to spread and stomp to make room. Ringo, the man's dog supervised, albeit a bit fearfully.

We managed to fill up and complete two truckloads in the hour and the pile was impressively smaller. Everyone was nice and warm by the time we said goodbyes. Hope there aren't too many sore muscles tomorrow.

It was so nice to go to Braywick this morning in the sunshine and blue skies seems like its been ages! Firstly I must apologise for the really bad photographs. I dont have the best phone camera and I am rubbish at selfies! Todays task was to get rid of the last of the summer bedding still hanging in there. Some of it I just tidied up got rid of dead stems and leaves in the hope that overwintering in the greenhouse some might survive. These were mainly begonias and geraniums. There is a table in the working greenhouse where sick plants go to see if they can be revived. It hadnt been sorted for a while so there was alot to get rid of. Amazing the difference a tidy up can do to the look of the place. This ofcourse if I had been Sheila I would have taken a before and after photo but sorry folks just my dreadful pictures. I did however enjoy my time there today very much! eeeh! They are soo bad!........