What do you get when you cross a bunny and a spider?

What do you get when you cross a bunny and a spider? A hare-net of course! What about a dog and a rose? Well that would be a collie-flower. And what if you throw in 9 unicorns, 12 dinosaurs, 3 lightening bolts, Deadpool, 5 ladybirds and a car park? Well then you would be volunteering at the Braywick Nature Festival!

The Festival, which was hosted and expertly organised by our friends at the Braywick Nature Centre, offered loads of free activities, from pond dipping and story telling to face painting and African Drumming. We couldn't have asked for better weather, the Nature Reserve offered a beautiful setting, and everyone was in a wonderful sunny mood.

A warm welcome to Emma and Jayne, who were GoodGyming for the first time and bravely joined myself, Hannah, Amanda, Sophie and Kim as volunteer face painters. It was lovely to see everyone and to have the chance to chat a bit as we worked.

Emma summarised our afternoon nicely:

Lots of faces painted, with varying levels of success. My arm and hands have more paint on them than some of the faces!

I estimate we painted around 160 children's faces, plus a few brave mums and dads. We also practiced on ourselves, and kudos goes to Sophie for wearing her caterpillar to her bowls match later in the day. Amongst the crowd-pleasing butterflies, rainbows, puppies and tigers, we enjoyed a few more unusual requests including a day of the dead skull and 'a pineapple called Jeff'.

We were sitting down, so it wasn't your typical GoodGym fitness session, but I felt like I had run a marathon at the end and shoulder and wrist muscles definitely got a workout. We had gret fun though, and would love to do more face painting in the future.

Meanwhile Sheila and Anita also worked really hard. Not only did they brave car park duty at this festival, they also helped on community missions at the Maidenhead Festival at Kidwells Park. A special mention to superstar Sheila, who will have clocked up 5 good deeds across the two festivals by the time the weekend is finished, and a HUGE thank you to Anita, who kept the face painters going with her amazing home made cooking.