Juliet O'Brien

Preparations across the land are in full swing for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and Hove is no exception.

Palmiera Square are having a Big Lunch event to celebrate this historic occasion, including live music, kids play areas and a whole lot more. And of course local residents are keen for the square to be looking its best.

So tonight after a balmy day with thundery rain threatening we did our best to sweep up as many leaves and elm samaras as the strong wind would allow.

Resident Stuart’s dog Scampi entertained by chasing the leaves as we swept them.

We ended the evening with a pairs fitness session, with one holding a position whilst the other worked e.g squat.hold/ squats, boat hold/sit ups etc. and just as we were finishing the skies opened the rain came down and I legged it round the corner back to my flat!

Hope you all didn’t get too wet on the way home!

Firstly huge congratulations to Michael for not only completing a marathon on Sunday but turning up to do Goodgym on Tuesday! I know the marathon didn’t go quite to plan but it is a phenomenal achievement to have completed and we loved hearing all about it last night. Feel proud!

Also last night a big Goodgym welcome goes to Matthew joining us for his first experience.

Our task tonight was a visit to the ever fantastic community garden that is Ingram Crescent. Every time we visit this place just gets better and better and they have now added a large seating area including a carved wooden fox. Michael & Juliet worked with resident Vic to scrub all the bird droppings of the benches ready to be used for the upcoming Easter weekend.

With a wet afternoon ruining the possibility of painting the shed as planned gardener Kim came up with a couple of alternative tasks. Firstly we created a 'fence' out of old bits of wood to house bags of rotting leaf mould and then we raked over some beds to remove sticky weed.

A quick pic with the fantastic Mx Fox before we headed back and then off to the Wick for our monthly social.

Welcome to JJane who joined us last night for the first time!

A light-ish, bright-ish evening saw us return to St. Andrew's Church. We met vicar Dan and two church volunteers, who asked us to remove ivy from the fences and remove a sweet little tree that had grown awry, and was also blocking the view of the CCTV. They hope this will help to reduce anti-social behaviour in the churchyard.

While the volunteers stuck up signs on the newly bare fences, Tara led us all in 'planking around the world'. And before we left, the last of the tree was uprooted from the ground.

Spring is officially here, and after a beautifully sunny weekend and it being the end of March, we got a little taste of April showers.

Tonight we ran to Natal Road Allotments to meet Heidi and Sally from the Moulsecoomb Allotment and Horticultural Society. Part of the allotment has become a dumping ground for all sorts of garden and household waste.

Five Brighton Goodgymers braved the nettles to scratch the surface of the rubbish mound. There was no official fitness tonight however, we managed cross overs with a pick axe, overhead weights lifting a corrugated sheet and a tug of war with several garden hoses!

Though there is still a mound to takle the shear amount of bags shows how much was cleared and sorted in an hour before the light started to fade.

We'll be heading back in about a month to help Heidi and Sally with another go at that rubbish mound!

https://youtu.be/eH1tin6XKbY

Gotta admit I was a bit worried about that one! A new meet location, a new task, a longer run and a LOT to do! What could possibly go wrong? Well as it turned out absolutely nothing!

So after meeting at Saunders Park we made out way into deepest, darkest Bevendean to visit The Real Junk Food Project’s Food Hub. Task owner Sarah explained that this is where all the food collected from supermarkets is stored before it gets distributed to the various cafe projects around the city. The hub also functions as a shop, on a pay as you feel basis. It’s not a food bank, no referral needed so if you fancy doing your shopping there and paying a fair rate for it you would not only be helping keep food out of landfill but also help the project with some of its costs, like shop rental etc.

Under the direction of Sarah and Julie the task tonight was to get all the food out of the hub so that we could give it a good clean and then help get all the food back in, in date order. No mean feat as there is a LOT of food. Using a combination of trollies and good lifting practice we moved all the crates to the outside of the hub where we date sorted a LOT of pasta. Meanwhile inside we vacuumed, mopped, wiped and scrubbed away all the dirt, condensation mould and cobwebs. Now all that was left was to put all the crates back in a date ordered and food categorised way. We all got on top of each other a bit, it was kinda chaotic but after one hour of hard work, order did indeed emerge!

Sarah and Julie were delighted with what we achieved. Lack of man power and time would have made it so difficult for them to do it without our help, and now with a newly scrubbed hub they can carry on with their great work of not wasting grub!