After the end of November gave us a sneaky surprise, four noble Goodgymers added a last-minute task to an already busy week for Goodgym York.

We came, we sorted, we found a new favourite book each - Richard opted for the Ups and Downs of being in your 40s, Nikki learned how to test her cat, Lucy took the Little Book of Cheese... and Mitch managed to pick a book with neither words nor title.

goodgym turned out in force tonight despite the very cold weather. perfect night for an indoor task.

The early arrivers helped to set up, then we all got started on wrapping a wide array of goods and books.

Fuelled with mince pies we worked hard for an hour and got lots done!

Some foll then headed off for another task and everyone else headed home!

Planet Food mission accomplished in speedy time, and hall clean and tidy!

4 hardy GGers braved the snow and ice traversing to the BIG skip at West Bank Park. Donned with many layers they set about climbing into the skip to dig, rake & shovel compost leftovers into bags. As we generated energy & heated up, excess clothes were discarded and those left on were coated with a lovely layer of mud in true GG style. 30 bags were filled, ready to go to our Tiny Forest. 1 hour later the skip was bare with a squeaky clean bottom. Good team work.

We had a good chat about how things used to be and going through all the changes for good and ill since then. Local council is withdrawing a lot of support at short notice which is giving folk who depend on someone to do their shopping , like Mr G, a great deal of anxiety about how they can manage in future.

😁 21 brilliant Goodgymmers gathered for this evening’s group run, cited as possibly one of the most random and/or mudtastic yet. More on that later though.

🌧️ Sadly, the weather wasn’t quite as good as we might have hoped but we’ve never let that put us off!

🍮 Ed led the warm up where we got our mouths watering discussing our favourite puddings, in honour of national cream pie day. Winter classics such as crumble and sticky toffee pudding (with a variety of accompaniments) made the cut, along with some inspired by recent baking activity (cinnamon buns or white chocolate and ginger cheesecake, anyone?)

🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️With our legs warm and our stomachs rumbling, Ed led the running group to West Bank Park whilst Abi led the walkers.

🌹 On arrival, Kristina gave us our expected compost-shovelling instructions for the new flowerbeds in the rose garden, along with some unexpected bonus tasks. Martin and Stef leapt into the skip to start shovelling from there into the first barrows. Meanwhile, Kristina took a few people with her to construct temporary barrow paths with cardboard.

⚽️ She also sent some people to the goalposts on the football pitch with tampers to commence one of our more unusual tasks, something that was fondly named “wet mud flooring” (as opposed to dry stone walling). Once the barrowers had dropped off their compost at the new flowerbeds in the rose garden, they collected “turf” (mostly mud with the odd blade of grass) and barrowed that back to the football pitch. The ground around one goal mouth in particular was particularly sloppy so Team Tamp were charged with laying/tessellating the pieces of turf and tamping it down to form a new (and slightly less sloppy) layer on top.

🤔 Whilst some doubt was expressed when some water started soaking upwards through the new layer, Kristina reassured us that this is a tried and tested technique that will improve the ground. Whilst our housemates may not have appreciated the next level mud attached to the tampers’ trainers, hopefully the footballers will appreciate their efforts.

💪 Soon, it was time to down tools and do a quick couple of rounds of “Meet and Retreat” for fitness before we headed back to base, stamping mud off en route.

🙌 Thanks everyone, and don’t forget that Kristina’s kindly letting us have the final compost scrapings for our Tiny Forest on Kimberlow Hill. So if you’ve got any spare time 11-12 on either Thursday morning or Friday morning please join Claire to help gather this invaluable resource!