Eleanor Peters

We had a really lovely evening on the Quayside, picking up lots of litter. It didn't rain as forecast which was great!

It was brilliant to be joined by Carol Anne, Liz (first ever GoodGym good deed!!) , Eleanor and Louise.

We managed to pick up 5 bags full of litter. We had a great meander along Skinnerburn Road (where we found lots of bottles, cans and McDonalds packaging) and then headed back along the Cycle path.

This evening was really enjoyable, lots of laughing, chatting and switching off from everything else.

Highlights of what we found tonight included a random plastic pink pig (see the photo) and an empty Gin bottle.

(Go and give Liz a cheer/welcome!)

It was our weekly visit to East End Women's food bank today where Thursdays seem to come around super fast!

Me, Eleanor and Louise were there for the usual fun alongside Building Futures East regular (and adopted GGer) Nancy. Louise had reported stocks were a little low last week, so it was great to see benches and boxes overflowing with supplies when we arrived today.

Lots of crates were already stacked high with ready-made bags meaning we were able to get the volunteers' cars packed up quickly even when some drivers arrived early! It was then on to packing a new set of food bags up (48 of them!) which we completed in a record time with the task all finished by 12:20pm (See the photo evidence of how taxing counting food parcels can be- definitely the hardest part of this task) This included a few breaks to marvel at how nice the jam looked and to allow time for my very dody wheelbarrow manoevuring.

Next week's visit it already listed here if you fancy enhancing your Thursday and seeing if you can beat 12:20pm.

It was my first-time volunteering for the weekly GoodGym mission at the East End Women food bank. Luckily, I had regular Eleanor to keep me right! This was an extra session on a Wednesday as we are so helpful, we are helping them twice this week.

Our job was to pack the vegetables. This involved taking various donated veg such as potatoes, carrots and onions from big bags/sacks/boxes and sorting them into bags of mixed vegetables. These were added to the main bags of food to go out to people who need them.

We stumbled upon an interesting vegetable that we weren’t sure what is was. Was it a turnip? A cabbage? One of the other volunteers enlightened us to the fact this was a kohlrabi (tastes similar to a turnip apparently). I also learned about plantains, which is basically much larger starchier banana used for cooking (slice and fry is the most common way). When we ran out of vegetables, we put a couple in each bag.

It was nice to use my lunch break to feel like I was making a difference to such a great cause.