Who wanted to watch England play in the World Cup anyway?! Not us. When we set off England were 1-0 down, but on our run to the task we heard a loud roar, and Ben ducked into The Wheatsheaf to check that, yes, England had equalised.

The lovely garden at Hearing Help needed weeding, especially the lawn, which was a bit of a jungle. Rich and Jess got the tools out, and after a quick safety briefing of DON'T GO NEAR THE HEMLOCK! we started pulling up weeds.

Another loud roar soon told us that England was now 2-1 up.

Ben and Martin got straight on it, I was distracted by a low flying kestrel but eventually put my bird app away and started work.

Fay and Sallyann arrived on foot, and together we filled a big rubble bag with weeds, and left a nice patch of cleared lawn for Hearing Help to enjoy.

We had nearly finished when Andy turned up. He's settling into retirement so well he's forgotten what time it is.

When the tools were away, we watched the house martins flying round the mill, and went home to watch the highlights.

Ten GoodGymers managed not to melt while helping look after the community garden in Broomfield. Nine of us arrived in the heat to find Jess already slaving away at our mission of moving a tonne of bark and watering the flower beds. Sallyann, Joel, Richard, Jess and Laurie were soon shovelling the wood chippings into buckets, while Andy, Rich, Leanne, Ben and Martin spread it over the ground and watered the plants. By the time we finished the smouldering mound of bark had been reduced to a mere mole hill. Well done everyone!

food was delicious. we missed Martin. great value with half price card!

more socials to come next month!

On what seemed to be the first day of summers evening, 6 of us met at HQ outside the Old Factory Gym ready to have a lovely chatty slow jog up to Broomfield allotments where we would meet Sallyann and Jess. There we would turn over a plot for an elderly gentleman, ready so he could start planting in. Leah was running late from work and as she lived nearby said she'll meet us enroute or at the task.

So we set off, with Ben leading the way and explaining how his sore shoulder actually turned out to be broken 🤯, but all healed now🥰. And as we passed a man watering his garden Jane exclaimed from nowhere "Nice tulips" to his and our surprise and also Jen's giggles.

We arrived still in sunshine ( it really makes all the difference) and set to work on the plot with fork and spade and a tool that you twist to break up the soil... which i have now learned is called a Tiller ( as being demonstrated by Jane in a photo). Chatting as we worked, Joel took some great photos and videos for the socials, one of which if you zoom in, looks like Jess is shouting at Leah but she promises she wasn't 😂

With a job well done we packed up and set off back to HQ as the sun set. Thanks for coming guys, it really makes a difference to the people we help. As Joel pointed out, 9 people doing 30 mins work = 4.5 hours for a single person. So well done all.

We'll be back at broomfield allotments in 2 weeks, but next week David will be leading us to an allotment closer to base for Age Concern. So if you are free next Wednesday come along for more chatty tilling.... ( look at me getting all horticultural 😂)

until then

RUN HAPPY 🥰

Rich