On a sunny Monday evening, four GoodGymers embarked on our longest Monday night run for quite some time, possibly ever. Due to a couple of unfortunate road closures in Gateshead, due to the flyover, the outbound run was a bit further than planned. We covered over six miles in total on the journey from Stepney Bank Stables to Age UK Gateshead's dementia day centre and back again.

This was our second visit to Age UK's centre in quick succession, as we attempted to rid their front garden of weeds. Many of them were very well entrenched, and there were lots of them, so more work is required to make the garden look pristine.

Richard, Damu, Lucy and Scott all showed a particular commitment to the getting fit part of GoodGym's 'Do Good, Get Fit' motto tonight!

Four GoodGymers visited Jesmond Community Orchard on a very pleasant Sunday. The tasks ranged from weeding around the base of trees and watering a new hedge to digging out three well-entrenched fence posts.

This was GoodGym Newcastle's first visit to the orchard for almost six years. We certainly won't be waiting as long before returning!

Two GoodGymers continued GoodGym Newcastle's self promotion drive in Heaton tonight. Last week's leafleting session yielded some new sign ups and social media followers, so we headed back out to the same area to try to spread the word a bit more.

The first GoodGym Monday group run to finish in daylight for what feels like a very long time was a bit of a mixed bag, in more ways than one.

As part of the Great British Spring Clean 2026 (we are a day late but never mind), we decided to head to Heaton Park, one of the parks not targeted by the council's organised litter picks the last couple of weeks. The night began with us having obscenities shouted at us by some unkempt imbeciles and ended with a young girl's dad approaching us saying she wanted to thank us for our efforts. Quite a contrast in our interactions with passers-by tonight.

In between, Heaton Park was surprisingly tidy, with very little litter. The journey there and the journey away from the park yielded many bags of litter, at least two or three each for our group of four GoodGymers.

It was great to welcome Bryn for her first good deed tonight, we hope we didn't overload you with too much GoodGym-related information. We are very enthusiastic about what we do! Experienced hands Scott and Jack made light work of the litter that crossed our paths, while Richard was left wondering whether the pompom on his hat really deserved to be the subject of such obscene abuse (probably not).

In eight years of GoodGym Newcastle we have used wheelbarrows before, but (correct me if anyone knows better) I don't think we have moved mountains of sand with them. Tonight's task was to move the sand from Stepney Bank Stables' bottom yard up to their outdoor arena, to be used to create enrichment activities for the horses.

Stepney Bank is an actual bank with some decent inclines, as is Stepney Road, which leads up to the outdoor arena. With some encouragement from some slightly tipsy pub goers, five trips involving ten wheelbarrows full of sand were made. The tyres in the centre of the outdoor arena took quite a lot of filling, but we got there in the end. Given the highly physical nature of the task, this was a unique Monday with no run offered. This proved to be a good decision as we had a later than usual finish in order to complete the task. Many calories were burned by all involved.

The final throws of the task were distracted by a game of cat and mouse with an actual cat and mouse. After a lengthy chase in the dark, it wasn't a happy ending for the mouse. Hopefully the horses fare better with their enrichment activities.