The Holly and the Envy

I think it’s fair to say that most Huddersfield GoodGymmers have become something of front door experts over the last 12 months. Many Tuesday tasks shoving leaflets through letterboxes throughout Huddersfield have provided a certain insight into what makes a good front door for a humble leafletter. And we had something of a Christmas treat last night, posting flyers promoting the Forget-Me-Not Hospice's annual Charity Christmas Tree Collection in the leafy, well heeled area of Fixby gave us all a little “door envy” as Kati Law called it.

Beautiful polished front doors, with nicely sprung, well lubricated letterboxes made last night’s task a real pleasure, as did the fact that the long drives and space between the large detached houses gave us a good workout too.

The 3K run from the Stadium to Fixby was enough to get us warm on a slightly chilly November evening. Last night’s crew of Kati Law, Ben Godfrey, David Bilton, Wendy Redmile and myself had a real challenge on, to deliver some 400 flyers to the houses of Fixby, in our allotted hour. As ever GoodGym is always up for a challenge and we were soon posting in our characteristic well co-ordinated fashion, two GoodGymmers on each side of the road, alternating deliveries and (mostly) running between properties to keep our heart rates up.

The dry crisp air made it a pleasure to run and we were soon rattling off the streets on our posting plan whilst enjoying the sights of some of Huddersfield’s prettiest properties. Netherroyd Hill, Lightridge Road, Kennedy Avenue, Bloomfield Road, The Fairway were all ticked off on our mission to spread the word about Forget Me Not’s tree collection service. Essentially it is a fantastic idea.....book online, make a donation to the Hospice and someone turns up with a van after Christmas to remove your redundant tree for recycling. You don’t need to get a car full of pine needles, the tree gets disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner and Forget Me Not raises some money....everyone’s a winner.

Anyway after an hour of posting, admiring front doors and having made a moderate dent prodigious pile of leaflets kindly provided to us by Louise Addison from Forget Me Not it was time to head for home. But not before the opportunity to grab a GoodGym Christmas tree group photo, a successful start to a December challenge to attempting to get a group shot with a festive tree on every run during the month.

The run back was also enlivened by an impromptu game of “Medical Conditions and Foods Which Sound the Same”, our best efforts were “coeliac and celeriac” closely followed by “syphilis and physalis”. If you think you can do better and/or fancy a dose of door envy join us on next week’s run when we’ll be out delivering the Forget Me Not flyers once again.

Thanks to all last night’s GoodGymmers for another super effort, and special thanks to Ben Godfrey for the festive title pun!