The Community Garden was looking great today with all of the tulips out. The bees were already enjoying the first few cornflowers and we planted some more cornflowers, sunflowers and honesty plants along the beds for them to enjoy later in the year. We also planted parsnips, leeks, fennel and lettuces straight into the beds and runner beans, french beans and courgettes into pots. The broad beans and radishes were already coming up from last months planting. We also tidied up some of the beds and trimmed around the edges. At the end we took some of the pots home to care for on windowsills and under glass ready to plant out later in the spring.

This was part 2 of sorting through moving boxes to help Mr J settle into his home. Mr J and I worked hard to go through boxes of items, with him telling me whether to discard or keep. Mr J is severely visually impaired and is a wheelchair user so I was acting as his eyes, telling him what each item was so he could decide its fate. We made a great team and progress was made towards the task’s completion.

8 GGers made very light work of two tonne sacks of top soil as we raced through the task in order to get to the pub in good time

The first group run of April also brought first really nice evening of the year weather-wise as the majority of GG Yorkies ditched the long sleeves and leggings for shorts and baseball caps. Tonight we celebrated a couple of epic recent PBs; one for Matt at the Berlin half last weekend and another for James at yesterday's tricky Helmsley 10k. Epic running chaps 💪

Tonight we also celebrated Hannah completing her 50th good deed! Although there was to be no cape tonight as she signed up too late for Ed to realise he needed to pack one. We'll get you next time!

Tonight we headed off to the Groves for some leafleting and a few odd tasks around the communal gardens. Laura set off promptly with a walking group, which was a good job as they decided to take the long way round, whilst Rich led a walk/run crew. The rest of the group set off with Ed at the front and Pete backmarking, but not before they'd had a stab at guessing the world's most popular chocolate bar (a question that proved to be a bit too much for Mitch as he struggled to muster an answer). Leanne was the only one who guessed correctly which got her out of 10 seconds of fast feet!

Over at the task 16 leafleters (not sure that's a word) paired up and set off delivering flyers for the Groves Association. The remaining team got to grips with various tasks including shifting bricks (careful), putting up some fairy lights, and a spot of composting

We all then met back up at 7:15 sharp for a quick team photo before a very appropriate fitness session from James who organised an epic sack race and even brought along some chocolate for the winning team. Cue lots of talk about James' sack for the remainder of the evening!

What better way to start the bank holiday than helping get the Acomb clothes swap ready? Ok well maybe there are a few but four of us volunteered to help anyway and had a lot of fun getting the tables out, bringing the rails up from under the stage and making sure everything looked perfect for the morning.

The easter clothes swap was very busy so luckily there were four of us this month to support the regular volunteers.

Everyone worked hard to ensure the new clothes made it out onto the rails and everything remained tidy. The task flew by and there was just time to pose with some easter eggs before we headed off to enjoy the bank holiday weekend.