Ruth

It’s Wimbledon finals day at the height of summer and you might think the last thing you’d want is a roast meal but actually members of the One to One group at St Philip and St James Church welcomed their turkey dinner and apple crumble. The sessions were set up many years ago to try to combat loneliness on Odd Down but went on the road during lockdown because of Covid restrictions. Now back at the church, there are some who are unable to get out any more and that’s where GoodGym comes in - delivering their lunches on foot. It was certainly hot work and hopefully I did it fast enough that they didn’t need reheating.

I asked one woman what it meant to get a meal delivered to their door. She said “ When something different is done to lift your solitude it just means a lot. It was really special that people would give up their time for you. Nobody that I spoke to had a service like that during lockdown and it hit home to me.”

When we do a task for GoodGym we are asked how much of a difference we are making and it is great to know that we do have an impact.

Four goodgymmers convened at a new favourite spot: the lovely Grow for Life walled garden in Newton St Loe. The tasks were a nice, mellow start to the day: Jane and Mark planted new rows of lettuce seedlings, Laura piled fresh earth into new beds and Ruth wielded the hosepipe with panache, giving the rapidly growing garden a much-needed watering. At the end of the session, our host Wayne introduced us to the various exotic salad crops growing in the garden, including mizuna, mibuna and deep purple pak choi. They were deliciously fresh and we were very happy to be invited to take home a bag of crisp, fresh leaves each for our lunch. There's still loads to do, so watch this space for another mission in June!

GoodGym went along for an introductory visit to an exciting new project in Newton St Loe.

This is a large walled garden taken on by a charity called Grow for Life, where we met Wayne, the project's manager. The garden falls on a gentle south-facing slope, of which the upper part had already been configured and planted with various veg crops.

Below that was an area which had been cleared and covered in order to clear out weeds and prepare the soil for the next lot of planting. Our first job was to help prepare the next area down from that...

First up, go over the area and remove any large stones and remaining bramble growths. That was the heavy lifting phase. Once we'd done that, the most fun part was to unroll strips of plastic sheeting which would be left to cover the area for a couple of months to properly kill all the weeds. We rolled out the sheets, then laid out stones and wooden pallets to pin in down.

After that we took a quick break, sitting on the area which is going to become a shed, before heading up to the more mature part of the plot for some watering and hoeing (technically, swoe-ing!) of the vegetable plot.

This is lovely plot, and we'll definitely be back to help out some more in the future. Don't let its remoteness from the town centre put you off, it'll be an exciting one to get involved in and watch as it develops over the coming months and years...

The Moorland road community library provides volunteers at the Two Tunnels race in return for vital funds to help keep the library operational.

You will be volunteering as part of the Moorland road library volunteer team at the Relish Running Two Tunnels race.

This task will include the following; 08:45 - 10:45 - Joining the registration Team and giving out race bib numbers and helping at the bag drop tent.

Good thing I took my trusty red GoodGym t-shirt to church with me as it turns out no one had signed up to help the monthly delivery of roast dinners to people in the community. Fortunately I was able to do a quick change and help out. Church members also lent a hand - the photo shows me with organiser and head chef Andy Stammers. St Philip’s puts on a meal once a month for people who’d otherwise be on their own and those who are housebound get theirs delivered. Today they got roast pork, fruit salad and a palm cross in celebration of Palm Sunday. Yum!