This evening's group run took us about 2km up the hill to All Saints C of E Junior School, where it turned out we had just 20 minutes to blitz a gardening task.

No problem! When a dozen GoodGymers are fenced into a small triangle of land and Nicola is armed with a children's spade, we can do quite a lot of scarifying, weeding and generally flinging bits of turf around.

This was exactly what was needed to prepare the ground for master re-soiler Angela, who arrived just in time to spread some fresh compost around.

We then bombed the area with seeds and we hope nature will do the rest to turn this patch into a lovely wildflower haven for pollinators.

After what was possibly the speediest bit of gardening we've ever done, we headed off to celebrate Scarlett's 50th good deed with some of Gillian's gorgeous ginger cake. Scarlett started GoodGyming in July 2023, so has done really well, notching up more than 1 good deed a week. Congratulations Scarlett - here's to the next 50!

Mrs S was just waking up from a snooze when I arrived - it seemed like it may have been a power nap as she was full of beans and talked the hind leg off a donkey once she had fully come round.

She had a lot to update me on as she had been unwell since my last visit and still wasnt fully recovered when her daughter and grand children came to visit. She had enjoyed their visit though especially as her eldest grand daughter, who she hasn't seen for ages, had joined them.

It's her birthday on Tuesday so I had taken her a plant and a card for her to open on the day.

I can't visit her now for the next three weeks but that will mean we have plenty to catch up on next time.

Today's task was a hanging basket special! Rachel, Laura and Sheila were using 'speedplanters', ready planted up with colourful mixes of annuals, and dropping them into hanging baskets with extra compost. And it really was speedy - before long we had 46 beautiful hanging baskets ready to be sold After a quick tea break we returned to one of our favourite tasks of planting petunias into 6-packs. A satisfying morning's work

At today's visit, Mrs J and I were talking about Race Across the World. She said that she would have loved to have taken part in the program when she was younger. And she reckons that her husband would have been up for the challenge too. She's braver than me! She also told me about a Japanese au pair girl who stayed with them. She was extrememly polite and would not start to eat until the master of the house had eaten first. Apparently they were all in tears when she left, and she still sends Mrs J a Christmas card every year

It's been a few weeks since I've been to see Ms J and it was lovely to find her in good spirits. This despite her various health struggles in the past month or so made it even better.

We chatted happily about my weekend in London and upcoming trip to Italy. I promised her more travel stories from my trip when I see her next.

Another nice Friday FoodShare shift where I continued with sorting and labelling the middle-aisle crates. I completed the Individual side, will tackle the Family side next week.