Wick and Span

We headed to Eton Wick this evening to help make the Youth Centre spick and span before their re-opening. We met at the task location but before we rolled up our sleeves and donned our rubber gloves, we made the most of the last few rays of the setting sun to have a walk or run in the local area.

Both the walking and running routes took us out across Coolley's Meadow and back along the Thames Path, giving us a lovely view of Windsor Castle, as well as bringing back happy GoodGym memories of hay racking and hedgerow management in the area previously. While Lena, Lou and Anita powered round the 2km walking route, runners Rachel, Juli, Jess and I covered just shy of 4km, including discovering a few new footpaths... Special mention to Rachel, who was initially put off by the 4km route, but was persuaded to go for it and did brilliantly.

By the time the runners arrived at the task location, Anita, Lou and Lena had made an impressive start on cleaning and organising the lower kitchen cupboards. Task owner Helen welcomed the runners and showed us the 'games and toys' cupboard, which we were to empty and sort out.

Highlights from the next hour of cleaning and laughter included:

• Seeing what brilliant progress has been made on the venue by task owners Helen and Claire since our first visit.
• Watching Anita and Lena blitz that kitchen. Wow what a great job!
• The human chain to empty the games cupboard - love a human chain!!
• The crazy array of fun stuff that came out of the cupboard. From Christmas decorations to sumo suits...
• Discovering that I have the longest arms out of everyone attending this evening.
• Lou managing to stay away from the pub this time and doing an amazing job sorting and folding the sports kit.
• The efficiency and energy with which Juli, Rachel and Jess took control of the cupboard and gave it a fantastic makeover.
• Finding out how many GoodGymers it takes to get a condemned bean bag into a bin liner. Answer, 4 plus lots of laughing.
• Seeing that A-frame become shiny and clean.
• So many hula hoops to play with...!
• Helen's feedback at the end that she was really thrilled with how much we'd got done this evening.

We had 5 minutes left at the end, which could only mean one thing... time for a quick hula hoop obstacle relay! So. Much. Fun. Well done and thank you GoodGymers for a great evening!