On a grey Saturday morning Rachel and Phoebe headed out to the Dry Arch Growers in Bathampton to support them in preparing for their annual wassailing event. They are a group of community growers that Goodgym regularly support.

A chipping good path We met Keith, our contact at Dry Arch and he soon had us equipped with shovels, rake and wheelbarrow to create a new woodchip path across some a muddy grass track. We got stuck in, marvelling at how much of a work out shovelling and wheelbarrowing is! After an hour of toil we'd created a good path ready for the soon to be arriving wassailers.

Lugging logs After a very welcome tea & biscuits break we were back out collecting firewood from a tree that had already been cut up on the far side of the fields. Wheeling an empty wheelbarrow up a hill and across a potted field turned out to be another good workout! We took 4 barrows of logs down to the firepit near the wassailing festivities.

Wassail! Finally we were able to relax and join in the celebrations, starting with a mug of hot soup and hearty bread sitting by the fireside. We were then summoned by the green man to start the wassail, and a local choir led us all in some singing, including the ballard of the Mini Apple: Mini apple stop your snoozing We need you for next year's boozing We're not bonkers to hang up toast That's what robins like the most.

The cider was flowing, the trees were being decorated by ribbons and toast stars, and the group continued around the orchard to sing. We took the opportunity to slip off home for a well deserved hot shower after all that hard work.

On one of the hottest day of the year so far, two GoodGym volunteers ran along the canal path to Dry Arch Growers in Bathampton.

We helped a crew of regular volunteers create some compost pens using wooden palettes. We learnt how to use a 'post whacker' to drive wooden stakes into the ground to hold up the walls of the pen. Once we were done we also turned over a whole pen of compost into another area using an array of shovels, spades, garden forks and pitch forks. Our work will help speed up the decompostion of all the organic matter that is breaking down there so it can be used to help develop the vegetable plots.

To say thanks for all our hard work, we were kindly offered some refreshments including some tasty homemade apple juice from the harvest last year. It tasted amazing!

We achieved so much in only a short period of time and the team there are really excited to have us back to help them out again at some point soon.

What a fun day of gardening, singing, and hanging pieces of toast on trees !

A very special welcome to new GoodGym runners Katy and Rozzi! It was also lovely to have Matt and Richard over from GoodGym Bristol :)

After a chilly run along the canal we arrived at the orchard and were put straight to work assembling a marquee and laying down a path so that guests at the Wassail could stay dry and safe. With half an hour to spare before lunch we were able to help chop up lots of branches from some elder trees - a task which would usually take a whole day - while our host, Keith, entertained us with myths about elder trees and witches!

A short jog over the canal took us to our well-deserved pub lunch.

We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying all of the weird and wonderful traditions of the Wassail. Hopefully all our efforts banging saucepans, singing, and hanging up bread will pay off and there will be a bountiful harvest of apples this year!

A windy one for 11 lovely goodgymers in Bath today for a cool scenic 8k run out to Dryarch to help with the annual

APPLE DAY

WELCOME TO HARRIET

Monty the dog took the lead today closely follow by Lucy and Hannah (one of our many doctors on the run) kindly back marking on the scenic run out along the Kennet and Avon canal.

Keith was overwhelmed by our presence today although soon had us organised into 3 groups. Hannah, Harriet ,Sarah, Lucy and Bee on chopping, scrutting and pressing and serving the freshly pressed juice.

Sarah goodgym Bristols master baker took charge at the Pizza oven whilst Rosie was overwhelmed serving the crowds on refreshments, from apple cake to cups of cider.

Steve, Ed, Mary and Steph plus the dogs on Bramley picking duties.

60 minute task

Such fun today with so much going on from pressing apple juice to a live folk band.

Have to say i love the compost loo.

We made time at the end to buy some Bath pressed apple juice, enjoy far too much cake, yet we still managed to get back to the leisure centre.

A celebratory Cider with our very own Rosie on her 99th Good deed in Bath.

Thanks to Hannah for todays Pun.

I can't wait for our wassailing event in January, one not to be missed.

what a fine morning for the intrepid pair Mary and Steph for a very short 2k run to an orchard in Batheaston for orchard share to pick apples ready for pressing tomorrow.

Wow!! What beautiful scenery

Tim, Keith and Sheila were pleased to see us and wasted no time assigning us a tree to work through.

Thankfully storm Brian was late

hitting this hillside location, although it proved windy enough to give the arms a resistance workout holding the apple picker.

1 hour later

and a whole lotta apples picked and placed in crates and loaded into Keith's car for transportation to Dryarch for Sundays

Apple Day

an event for all the family and the weathers looking good so why not come along, bring the kids.

We helped load the car and grab a few apples to make a crumble before heading off back down the hill.

Thanks to Steph for leading , Mary for backing and the pair in the lane for todays pun.

Six super APPLE FABTASTIC runners this morning in BATH for a scenic 8k run along the canal to DRYARCH GROWERS in Bathampton to help pick Apples for storing to press at a later date.

WELCOME HANNAH and SARAH

its great to be able yo provide an extra session so these super busy ladies could join us today. So 4 Doctors in the house today.

Always great to have Godfather DAVE from Gg Bristol along with us in Bath, if you ever need to know anything about coach runs or missions, he's your man.

We also had an extra special guest with us today, BIG SHOUT OUT to MONTY the dog, I'm not sure if Lucy was leading or Monty.

THE TASK

1 hours worth of apple picking and sorting,then storing into wooden crates. Two teams today:

THE BRAMLEYS

Aka Lucy, Sarah and Hannah with Monty supervising along with Don, the guy who knows his apples.

THE LAXTONS

Godfather Dave, Steve and Steph, under the watchful eye of Tim and this team were certainly shake rattle n roll.

Blimey! Time really does fly when your having fun. Time for tea and biscuits though before running back to the leisure for a well earned stretch.

We have a super apple weekend on October 21st/22nd when we will be picking and pressing this fabulous fruit.