On a wet evening only the toughest (or foolish) GoodGymer's were out doing good in the borough! It was time for a trip to Senior's, little did we know what was in store...

On arrival, there was no one to be seen, we checked all the rooms, even the cafe (with much concern that Steve should not be left to go alone) but we didn't check the basement, we didn't think everyone would be down there!!

The task for the evening was to help clear the basement. We had been down there many a times to collect the Christmas decorations and marveled at the things that were down there. This was now our chance to dig deeper. The only problem is no one from Senior's wanted to throw anything away! Not even the boiler collection notes from 2011...

One team of Oli and Louise were tasked with going through the DVD's and removing any inappropriate ones. A task that was very subjective to everyone's tastes in films (Oli's = classic 90's films).

Another team of Alison and Paul tackled the paperwork dating back from 20 years ago!!

And Lindsay and Steve went up and down those stairs taking things to the bins and also labeling boxes!

The photos don't even do justice the variety of items that we found! Great work tonight team, I think we made a dent in the many many items in the basement!

Our first group run back in 2025 and I was kind enough to put one of our hilliest and furthest tasks in the diary for this eve. It was that or we took the decorations down before Christmas and I am never ever suggesting that again - I don't think everyone is quite over that year yet.

Anyway, it was soon time to leave the warmth of Glass Mill and start our run over to Senior's. Upon arrival we found half our task had been kindly done for us and it was just a case of removing the decorations that required a ladder and taking down the trees.

It was a quick task and soon we were starting the run back to Glass Mill. Before we left, I did notice the Halloween bat had survived yet another taking down of decorations!

It was time for the big event, our favourite task of the year and that's putting the Christmas decorations up at Seniors, not going for drinks at the Blythe Hill Tavern (although that comes a close second)! We eagerly headed up the hills to Senior's wearing our flashing scrunchies to draw attention to us even more.

Paul and Jacqueline had arrived earlier than us (it's like the start of the dream...) and had started putting the blue and silver tree up in the dance hall.

The rest of us quickly divided into groups and found a role from untangling lights to hanging tinsel to decorating the second tree.

Time really flies when you're having fun or wearing all the tinsel, it was time to hang the last decorations and take our group photo! Then onto the Blythe Hill Tavern for celebratory Christmas drinks.

I would like to say a huge thank you for all the hard work that you do for the community groups we support - you're all amazing!!

This trip to Senior's was a little different, in place of completing a big task that the team are unable to complete themselves and therefore doing some good... we arrived to a very dark looking building and spent 5minutes trying to find a doorbell.

Unfortunately there was to be no task for the evening but not to worry we'll be seeing the Senior team soon. It's nearly time for putting the Christmas decorations up!!

And we still got in a longer run up and over the hills - silver lining!

In a deviation from the usual Monday time, four GoodGymers met at Seniors on a Thursday evening. The reason for such change: to decorate the hall and the sun room with the spooky-looking ornaments that Di had procured, in time for the Halloween celebrations. Being early to the task, courtesy of well timed buses, Darryl and Julian set out to untangle the white net and hang it down from the ceiling to make it look like spider webs. Meanwhile, I started trying to tie some string to the witch's hats so they too could be hanged from the ceiling. I had made very little progress when Jenny arrived, fresh from running over (and so being the only one who actually did the Gym bit of our title), who quickly sorted out the remaining hats.

Having established that I was useless with hats, Jenny and Julian proceeded to do the hanging bit, while Darryl and I finished off the spider webs, completing them with a good few black spiders for a realistic look.

The final touch was to spread a load of bats in and around the windows, and the whole scary job was done. All that was left to do was to get a couple of pictures, with Di managing to stay true to topic and produce the best ghostly picture this group has seen.

It was time for a trip to Senior's and after a summer of helping in the garden, it was time to move back inside which we were very glad of when we arrived at Glass Mill and it was cold and windy with signs of potential rain to come.

There was no time for hanging around, everyone was cold and we had some hills to tackle. It's always satisfying run when Senior's involved because you know you've tackled the hills twice.

On arrival at Seniors, we were greeted by Di who explained the task for the evening which was cleaning the radiators, tables, chairs and toys in the cafe. We had one strict rule to follow: no leaving water on the chairs. Last time we did this task there might've been a few soggy bottoms the next day!!

Time flies and after getting in our favourite task of the year (putting the Christmas decs up - 16th Dec) it was time to say our goodbyes and head off to either the pub or run back to Glass Mill.