After welcoming back Michael (me!) to the Good Gym community, we set off for this week’s destination – the grounds of the Manor Paddock Seniors Housing Scheme. Our run took us up the steep hill of Edward Street and then along Eastern Road, passing Brighton College and the Royal Sussex Hospital on our left and views of the terraces running down to the sea on our right.

When we arrived, Manor Paddock’s resident, Luc, showed us around their beautiful grounds – a green and flower-filled space, with rose bushes, honeysuckle, and unfortunately a whole lot of weeds! Luke explained that, while the council came to mow the grass, everything else that needed caring for was left to the residents.

The headline was: weeds out – mulch in! So we quickly set to, with rakes, forks, trowels and a lovely mixture of compost and earth. Tara and Katharine got their mulch on at the North end of the garden while the rest of us gave the grounds a good old makeover.

Many hands make mulch work so, before the hour was up, we’d cleared and fed all of the beds, even finding time to plant some gooseberry and clementine bushes. Tara then led us through a quick fitness session, where we all surprised ourselves with the number of sit-ups we could do in three minutes, before we headed to the Sidewinder in Kemptown for a well-deserved pint (or two!).

The big news tonight was All About a Roy as he became the latest in a recent spate of runners reaching the magic milestone of a whopping 50 Good Deeds! Oh Roy! What an achievement! And brilliantly timed so you didn’t have to share any of the limelight with any of the other recent entrants to the 50 club! Now If I were a Roy I would probably have offered to write this run report myself so I could big myself up but as he didn’t the task has fallen to me to write an Ode to Roy! The best thing about Roy as far as I’m concerned is if he drinks more than 2 pints at the monthly social you’ve got a pretty good chance of persuading him to write the run report. He’s also thought of a couple of really good puns. Back in his glory days he came up with School Runnings & Back to the Fuscia and I remain hopeful that his recent dry spell will soon be over.

In other news we had 3 new runners joining us for their first run, we were very happy to meet Oz, Joe & Mike. Welcome!

After a 1.5km run to meet Cllrs David & Elaine we split into sub groups to tackle various tasks around the Hanover & Elm Grove ward. Our recent efforts at painting over graffiti have massively reduced its impact in the area and we continued our efforts tonight with Emma & Helena tackling some small new scribbles including a very Badly Drawn Roy and Katharine & David spraying over some junction boxes & bins.

8 other runners including Roy (Roy Division?) took on a bigger area just off the Lewes Road and the pictures show quite a transformation. Great work!

Everybody else worked around the area at the bottom of Elm Grove litter picking and battling the bind weed in front of the Percy Wagner Almshouses and the collective efforts of 20 Brighton Goodgymers has done wonders to keep the neighbourhood looking smart.

The Fitness Session on the Level involved a pack of cards and a game that led to Carly being crowned King of Burpees! We wiill definitely play this game again, perhaps in a slightly different format for no other reason than it opens a whole new pack of card related pun possibilities!

Have a great Bank Holiday folks, see you next Tuesday!