Today, five of us gathered at Mycenae gardens to clear the grass away from the trees and piling up fresh sticks to be added to the dead hedge. 🌳

After an hour of blood, sweat and tears the area was looking much clearer and we were ready for coffee and cake! ☕

Welcome back to Deanna for her second good deed- lovely to have you join the crew 😎

On Wednesday we're back at St Richards. Next week it's our Christmas do!

Until next time.

It was cold and it was with some trepidation that 7 Good Gymers convened at Charlton house in anticipation of a cold night’s weeding at Charlton Manor primary school. It was cold so formalities were dispensed with and we set off for a gentle run through Charlton park where we got our first bonus of the night, a sneak preview of the Sparkle in the Park light trail, which had the advantage of lighting the first part of our run.

Soon we were at the task and we received our second bonus of the night. Sometimes you look forward to a fun task only to find it has been replaced with something more arduous or boring (for example, bulb planting being replaced by shifting a ton of topsoil as some of us had found at Lewisham the previous Monday) but tonight we had the reverse: the weeding outside had been replaced a perennial Good Gym favourite, painting (and inside to boot).

Task owner Joe to us into the dining area of the school to some walls that were probably last cleaned, let alone painted, when Joe was a schoolboy himself. Down to work we got with several of the teams getting to work scrubbing the walls and others applying paint to these long-neglected walls. And, as usual, the sheer power of Good Gym meant that short shrift was made of the task, with many square metres of wall (and a few Good Gym T-shirts) receiving a fresh coat of paint. Proud of our work all that remained was a quick group photo before braving the cold again for the short run back to Charlton House.

This was a great fun task at a great location and we’re already looking forward to going back and paint more of the school.

With the promise of a relaxing evening bulb planting, the number of red tshirts (some hidden under many layers) was promising as we headed off to RUSS Community Housing, only to find out we weren't planting bulbs but instead shifting topsoil!

In true GoodGym spirit no one minded the change of task and it was definitely a task that kept us warm!

Part of the group stayed by the time capsule (and hopefully didn't open it!!) ready to receive the bags of top soil and empty them onto some pre-laid out cardboard.

Another part of the group tackled digging up the top soil and putting it into bags. There was a good rhythm going by the end including some lovely delicate shoveling with the small spade!

The remainder of the group wheeled the bags to and from both locations! There was a variety of modes of transport, some could handle the job and some looked like they might tip over at anytime - the modes of transport, not the GoodGymers!!

We were then treated to tea and biscuits to warm us up before we headed back to Glass Mill for a quick cool down. Not before we admired Vic's running technique as she disappeared into the distance and decided to try our best to replicate but we might have all ended up with pulled muscles so we'll leave that to the experts!