Three impeccably dressed Goodgymmers spent the morning helping out at the Acomb Clothes Swap.

Jenna was very pleased to see us with people already queuing out the door so we got to work straight away putting out the clothes people had brought and tidying up the rails. Time flew by as the stock and customers kept coming, with many items not even making it to the rail before people took them from us.

The other volunteers kept supplied with tea and cakes but my offer to exchange a slightly sweaty GoodGym t-shirt was politely declined.

After two hours of non stop work, the swappers finally started to disperse. Jenna thanked us for our efforts and said the swap would not have been able to go ahead without us.

Six Goodgymmers had a lovely morning at Acomb Community Clothes Swap, providing a bit of extra help at this fabulous community event.

Our main task was to keep the racks full of clothes and make sure everything stayed tidy - while having the occasional cup of tea and nosy around for some new (old) clothes.

It was great to meet new Goodgymmer Sophie, who really enjoyed helping at the event.

It was a bonus to get some new items for my wardrobe!

Becca and Antonia upped their sartorial skills, learning a fancy new way to put jeans on a hanger and expertly arranging the children's clothes rack, which promptly fell apart... only to be given a classic Goodgym fix by James, who cunningly tied it back together with a tie from menswear.

Tay found what would have been the perfect pair of red trousers... if they had been several feet shorter.

Once things got a bit quieter, we had a last look over the clothes before heading off to enjoy the rest of (what I can only assume would be) our extremely stylish weekends!

☀ 26 excellent GoodGymmers gathered for our third and final bank holiday group run of the month. And a lovely sunny evening it was too.

👋 We were thrilled to welcome Michaela for her first group run, and to see Louise who’s visiting up from London.

🦸‍♂ Sadly, I completely forgot to bring the cape for Ed’s very impressive 300th good deed so that glorious moment/photo op is yet to come. Well done though 👍

🥔 We named, numbered and warmed up with a slightly ad hoc question (which fit with my slightly disorganised mind this evening). In honour of it being whitsun weekend, we offered our favourite comedian and/or potato dishes. There were some very reputable comedians cited but personally, it also just reminded me how many great ways there are you serve potatoes (dauphinois, hash browns, croquettes), which in turn made me pretty hungry.

🍎 Ed led the run to Holgate Community Orchard where we marvelled in the progress that’s been made in the 18-ish months that we’ve been coming here. The first part of the patch is blooming with wildflowers so we got stuck into the second. One job there was to lop nettles, dig brambles and remove bindweed. Meanwhile, another group got stuck in removing stones from a stony patch.

🧲 A third group were on random metal object extraction duties. Door handles/hinges and horseshoes were among their finds, with some impressive digging to get them out. More natural finds were a potato plant by Charlotte (which Helen thinks must have been there for decades) and a frog by Bernie. We can’t wait to see how this part of the orchard turns out and we’re particularly excited to hear more about the bee initiatives there 🐝

🗻 Some excellent work was done during our time there tonight, before we headed to Windmill Rise for some hill reps. We did these in pairs and included a warm up and cool down plus three higher intensity reps in the middle.

🍻 With that, it was time to head back to base and home/on to the pub.

🌺 We’ve got a few sessions coming up this week, including this one at North Street Gardens on Wednesday evening with Barbara so do sign up and join us if you can.

Five of us braved the windy wet evening to continue with the painting that we started for Get Cycling on a group run a few weeks earlier. Having previously done a white undercoat on the whole room we were given a section to do the grey top coat for. Luckily the really expensive bikability bikes had been moved to the other side of the room this time. There was an initial confusion of greys between the pots that meant some of the darker door grey got used on the top band instead of the mid grey although luckily not confused confused with the third pot of lighter bottom grey. We did go over it when it had sort of dried but it still didn't quite match the rest of the band. Abigail and James did the top section as they were the tallest, leaving Angela, Antonia and Laura to do the lower parts. Despite a bit of a paint splattered floor Joanne seemed happy with our efforts. Her young son came and gave us encouraging feedback as we painted which was an added bonus.