The Christmas Grotto wants to fly to the North Pole..

It feels like every year when Eastville Park put up their Christmas Grotto marquee, we have galeforce winds and it tries to fly away. I think this proves the grotto wants to fly to the North Pole?!

Transforming netting into a Christmas Grotto

Inside the marquee we were asked to add Christmas decorations to the netting that had already been hung. Our directions were; use your imagination and transform it into a Christmas Grotto; we can do that! There were 3 trees to decorate too. We made it look alot more festive with a mixture of decorations; baubles, shoes, soldiers, fairies... Made easier with the hooks Richard found

Leaving before the grotto gets grotty

After debate between the Friends of Eastville Park, they thought it was best to let the wind through the marquee and opened some doors. We weren't so sure! Some of the marquee started tearing and we were quite concerned it might all break and so we left before it collapsed on us, with the offer of helping take it down if Santa couldn't make it tomorrow...

Eastville Park was busy on Saturday with a community event running at the pop up cafe, so after a quick check-in with Andy, we made our way down to the lake. Luckily the forecast rain held off and as can be seen from the before and after photos, by scraping, hoeing and wheelbarrowing we were able to make fantastic progress clearing weeds and moss from both sides of the lake, getting so carried away that we slightly exceeded the time scheduled for the task! We returned to the Nissan hut for a group photo and a cuppa and perhaps a slice of cake! Well done everyone! See you next time!

Our task was going to be weeding around the lake, but arriving at the hut and chatting to Andy it became apparent that our help would be much more valuable helping prep the nissen hut ready for the insulation to be applied later in the week. So we sprang into action wielding hammers, brooms and (I think Sara's and Art's new favourite tool!) a long crowbar to remove wood frames and with the aid of Henry the vacuum, the dust of 70+ years! Kind bars all round as a reward before we headed off. Before and after photos to show how well we did!

Seven hardy Goodgymers - including Jp who joined us for her first session - tackled some more lakeside weeding.

Over an hour the magnificent seven cleared another 100 odd metres of the edging stones. This stops weeds establishing and their growing roots from pushing the edging into the lakes.

An elite group of very select Good Gymmers (3 of us) were the only ones to sign up to this task so we had a change of plan and didn’t go down to the lake. Instead we dealt with biblical scenes, as over the weekend someone decided to burn a bush. We trimmed it back so it wasn’t so messy and sticking out sharply into the path then relaxed with some elderflower cordial on the bowling green.

A return to Eastville park to help out with some preparation for Saturday's community cafe.

A warm welcome to Annie who joined us tonight for her first Goodgym task/run!

We also achieved a three strong 'rich' (the collective noun?) of Richards. Onwards to a rich of 4, 5, 6?!

Anyway, tonight we tidied up the flower beds, arranged some furniture ready for the cafe, and helped set up some colourful signs to advertise the cafe.

Happy days, thanks everyone!