Are you taking the biscuit? No we’re taking the whole packet!

This week we walked and ran approximately 3km in total to Ferndale Primary School and back, to help with a gardening task. The outdoor area is entirely managed by volunteers and they needed some help with an ongoing garden project.

The folks that know lots about the weather foretold rain and so we set about preparing our boats and galoshes and the sceptics amongst us predicted a less enthusiastic turnout than usual. Oh, how wrong we were! 22 GoodGymers flocked to the Oasis, ready to run and do good - one of our biggest turnouts so far, yay!! We were excited to welcome three newbies; Sarah, Rachel and Gabrielle, to their first run. They got stuck right in with the running, chatting and doing-good and we hope they will join us again soon!

At Ferndale Primary School we were met by Jane and some other volunteers for the school, and one of the lovely pupils who offered us squash and whisky. Whisky!? Apparently we’d misheard and in fact we’d been offered biscuits! Well, it’s an easy mistake to make - the wind had been whipping our ears about a bit on the way there!

There was lots to do and as always there was no dilly-dallying – everyone quickly picked a task and found the appropriate tool, or grabbed a tool and then found something productive to do with it. The Ground Force crew of Alan, Charlie and Tommy, AKA Special Kay, Jase the Ace and Safety First Simon did a splendid job of digging a perfectly rectangular trench for a sleeper to edge the landscaped area. There was much standing back and admiring of the finished job and the spirit level never lies! Others got busy clearing the raised flower beds of weeds, scooping up leaves and sprucing up the bike shed. We filled lots of black bags with the weed that has the little green hairy balls that get everywhere - the super fun Velcro of the plant world!

Back to the biscuits, we stopped for a quick break while discussing the merits of all-weather sturdy Bourbons versus the more delicate Jammie Dodgers and were invited to fill up our pockets with more for the journey home. We think we’ll be offering to come back sometime soon!

In other news, Kirsty murdered a snail. RIP snail. We’ll move quickly on from that in case the RSPCA are reading. Tracey found a tiny hedgehog, or was it a truffle? Or maybe it was just an old conker that had fallen from the tree? Who knows, but finding unusual objects on our tasks has become a bit if a thing.

Over in the playground, Charles appeared a bit wibbly and worse for wear, causing great concern for his wellbeing. Had there been a sneaky whisky on offer after all? As it turns out, he’d been playing that old classic childhood game of quickly spinning around and then trying to follow a trail on the playground floor. Nothing to see here (except video evidence is available for a small fee!)

We loved this task and it was easy to see what a whopping difference we’d made in such a short time. Another dose of GoodGym magic brought to another corner of Swindon!

Just time for a group photo (most definitely a landscape shot with our boosted numbers!) where we held aloft our tools…and biscuits, before the group and the remaining Jammie Dodgers that had been taken hostage headed back to the Oasis.

Please note: no hedgehogs, only one snail and one Charles were harmed in this the making of this task.

Next up in our exciting calendar of events:

Saturday 15th June - Community Mission at Bubble Rush in aid of Brighter Futures which is a 5km fun run where we’ll 'takeover' some of the Bubble Stations complete with Foam Canons, to ensure that everyone has fun at this family friendly event! Sign up here!

Tuesday 18th June – Group Run to Gorse Hill Community Centre and back, where we will be walking and running approximately 3km in total to help with a much-needed painting task. This is a new venue for us and we're very keen to help spruce up the place. Sign up here!