Seas the Day

On a blustery evening we were very grateful that the early heavy rain had cleared and sunshine prevailed.

Michelle, Steve, Christina, Paul, Ros, Belinda, John, Duncan and Gill completed tonight’s line up.

After some GG local updates and banter together with a fair amount of gentle nagging from me about the importance of keeping up to date with weekly GG communications , the team set off on the 2k run to St Botolph’s church garden.

With a warm welcome from Sue and Peter together with church wardens Rick and Val the team were briefed with our jobs for the evening

Firstly there was the challenging task of clearing an area around the old chapel garden which shrouded in a wilderness of brambles, ivy, bindweed and thicket. Secondly we were asked to scrape and sweep moss off the concrete paths around the back of the church.

Font’astic task

Without our very own snowflake this week we had to make our own entertainment but truthfully the whole team just got stuck in with fairly hefty intensive work.

Christina, Gill and Michelle started with the moss clearing whilst Barbara and Duncan, both rocking their black t-shirts disappeared around the corner to attack the brambles and weeds.

Paul and Steve were recruited by Peter for some heavy work to dislodge a metal barrier gate from the remains of the old chapel which were being anchored by weeds and brambles. With a bit of a heave-ho the obstruction was dislodged so that further work could take place to clear the area so that people could walk around the remains. Belinda and John worked in perfect harmony pulling up the overgrown weeds and brambles in what appeared as if it might be a rockery.

Imagine our surprise when John discovered the remains of a font under the tangled weeds. It even had a space for a plug at the bottom. It is most likely that this is the original font from the 13th century remains of the chapel on the east side of the church where we were working. So in reality tonights task was like an archaeological dig!

We all decided that alongside the accompanying large stone slabs of rock we could make a feature of this area similar to our project last week at The Rowans. This may encourage the community to come and rediscover a part of the history that has been hidden for years.

With another fond farewell and promise to return very soon we headed off for a steady, wind assisted, run back along the seafront past our GG flowerbed. The front group doubled back so that we all stayed within the vicinity of each other before a parkrun sprint finish and the start of our fitness session.

Holy HIIT

With the GG Worthing fitness challenge well under way we set about 2 rounds of 8 moves with 15 repetitions of each. The moves were Inchworms, Squat jumps, Mountain climbers, Inchworms with press ups, hover to plank, burpees, press up jacks, cross crawl abs.

SUCCESS all depends on the second letter

After the first round of the exercises the team looked hopefully at me for the cue to head to the pub but despite some puppy eyed looks I kept them going another 10 minutes with one more round of each move.

With commitment this challenge WILL make you stronger and fitter so what have you got to loose by giving it a try? Every day would be amazing but in reality 4 times a week would do it.

On the subject of success, special mention to John who has achieved his goal of running without stopping the parkrun 5 k a whole 4 weeks ahead of schedule! Lets all extend massive kudos and congratulations to you John. U did it! Now to work on the next challenge :)

In other news

Many thanks to John for reshaping our letter 'G' in the seafront flowerbed. If any of you have any time to do some dead heading so that it can be restored to its former glory that would be much appreciated ( but only if you have green fingers please!! )

Lucy and Duncan are training hard for their ultra-run on 7th September. Both are doing it for charity (Help the heroes- Lucy and Turning Tides-Duncan ) Wishing you both lots of luck for the tough training regime.

Pauls Birthday celebrations have been postponed until we can celebrate Tamsin’s too. How about a Wednesday meal at the new Caribbean restaurant in Worthing (next to TK Max) 14th, 21st or 28th August? Let me know ASAP.

GG HQ asked Nick to write an article to help promote walking groups. Here it is Thank you NRG :)

Founder of GG Ivo did a great podcast. Have listen

Next week we are meeting at Splashpoint and heading to Turning Tides Byron Road hostel and also Stepping Stones in Manor Road.

Hope to see you all then,

Julia xxx