This afternoon we helped prepare an area for bee friendly plants

This Bank Holiday afternoon we met at Heathfield House and Gardens to help our buzzy busy friends. Bees are under threat globally and today we were doing our bit locally by helping weed and dig over a large flowerbed so bee friendly plants could be grown there later in the year by the Heathfield Ecology Centre. It was a hot and humid day but we got down to business and weeded, pulled and cleared the weeds up – hopefully no plants were collateral damage! While we were working an outdoor play was being set up as part of the Open Day all about the lives of insects – it was a bit drzzly by the time it started but as it was a Bank Holiday and we all know they usually mean rain then most of the audience had umbrellas with them!

After we’d finished we had a short but scenic run through the local woods – a bit of a change from the pavements we normally pound on Tuesdays evenings. We even had a bit of excitement when I misdirected Helena and we ended up in a stable yard with a dog bounding towards us – apparently he had no teeth so we would have been safe enough!

The Starter sessions are to introduce new runners to GoodGym and give them a chance to see what we do and also to tell them about Coach run and Missions. So we were happy to welcome Sam and Alex to the GoodGym crew where they were able to chat to the regular runners – it was great to meet you all and hope to see you again soon. Welcome also to Helena who’d popped in on her trip home from Brighton and to Paul all the way from Bristol.

This Tuesday’s run we will be helping a local community group, East Croydon Community Organisation clear some unruly ivy and some other stubborn weeds to help them with their longer term plans to improve the local environment by replanting the overgrown beds

Mrs A needed her front and back gardens tidied up for summer and two Goodgymmers were happy to take on a mission on a lovely Saturday morning. A previous GG team had visited last year and must have done an excellent job, as we found that the garden was still in great shape and only needed some weeding and trimming. Mridula had brought a pair of gardening gloves that would make Michael Jackson jealous, but Mrs A had all the tools and equipment we needed, so we'll have to wait to see those in action.

The second part of the mission involved unpacking a new microwave for Mrs A. We discovered to our delight, that it was a talking microwave (Mrs A is partially sighted) - "just like Knight Rider" according to Mridula. With the theme tune to Knight Rider in my head, we headed off to enjoy the rest of our weekend.

Tom, Bryon and Lucy met on a sunny Saturday morning to help Ms N get ready for some building work. The task was to clear a room which had become something of a storage area. While chatting with Ms N the trio ran upstairs and down into the cellar with boxes, bags, bathroom fittings and a kitchen worktop. Mission accomplished, we said our farewells and headed off to enjoy the sunshine.