After a delightfully sunny weekend I was feeling hopeful that we may be lucky and avoid another drenching.....

WRONG Within 2 minutes of arriving the rain started we all got drenched and filthy with mud!

Despite this our hosts Val and Rik were pleased to see us for our first visit of the year to them ( although they weren't too keen on the rain ! )

We had clear instructions from Val to dig over ,weed and plant up some small and medium sized shrubs that Val had brought along with her.

Whilst my team got stuck ( in the mud) I loaded up my car with the wet and muddy debris from last time and took the blue bags down to the seafront where they will ( hopefully) be picked up by our amazing refuse team.

By the time I got back to the task the weather had gone from bad to worse so we quickly concentrated on planting up the shrubs ( no need to water them in! ) followed by gutter surfing our shoes to get the mud off ( and in Barbara's case jumping with wild abandon in the puddles! )

All the photos represent just how wet and miserable it was! With this in mind I wanted to say a massive thank you to Gillybean and Barbara who were fresh from their long volunteering stint at Brighton marathon on Sunday together with Paul and Belinda You all deserve extra kudos for ploughing on in those weather conditions and not complaining once! 👏 👏👏👏

Let's hope the weather improves for the pond maintenance next Monday 🙏

Stay dry and have a great week.

Thanks everyone 🥰

Julia xx

Rain, Rain, can you just go away

Oh my goodness - after a sunny morning and early afternoon that showed so much promise for a light and dry GG task, on arrival, we were faced with the worst of the worst . It was dark, wind, rain and a chill factor that was not pleasant.

Barbara, after a challenging few months of illness and injury, was immediately told to go home - obviously she didn't! but thank goodness she didn't hang around too long - we want our very special Babs back to best ASAP !

It was so nice to see Paula back to a Monday task and what a glorious night of weather that she chose for it!

Thank you also to Johnand Daisy who also turned out in the horrible weather to try and finish this ongoing project.

Massive thanks to Belinda who was on her photography duty again ( wishing her poorly thumb a speedy recovery )

Digging in

With hoods up and garden forks in hand we got down to the heart of the digging and weeding. Another night where we were so grateful for Uncle Ivo's lights!

45 minutes later and enough was enough ! We down tooled and attempted to remove the cloggy mud from our shoes.

I think its fair to say that we were not dorry to say goodbye ! What we really need is a decent GG jacket for nights like this .......

Have a great week.

Julia xx

Sunday rewind

It had been a very successful Brighton half marathon for 5 of our group. Sue W, Sue A, Ricky ( who got a PB) Paul and John all did brilliantly battling a vicious easterly wind in the the last 5 k of the course. Massive kudos to Belinda and John too who were the intrepid supporters and who stood in the freezing weather watching and photographing everyone before getting soaked in the torrential wind and rain getting home afterwards.

Monday fun day

Luckily the weather had calmed down by Monday evening for our visit to Heene Community Centre gardens where we have a bit of a winter project on the go!

It was a surprise to welcome Nick back to GG. Nick had achieved some fantastic results the day before with 2 gold medals and 1 bronze in his regional ballroom and latin dance competition. With the attraction of spending quality time with his wonderful wife together with the idea of a social and food afterwards, it meant he turned up with a garden fork and spade in hand, ready for some digging!

John and Paul also fell in with the digging crew whilst Belinda arrived for some more photographic duties whilst her poorly thumb gets better.

It was all going smoothly with some great progress until Nick got obsessed with a stubborn root that he refused to leave and 'cover it over' as i requested ( quite a number of times,) Even Paulagreed with me but no, clearly I'm not th boss at home or on a GG task!

Craig to the rescue but then I realised he was just as stubborn as the flippin' tree root ( and Nick!) Whilst the focus was on this root, Paul, John and myself were just getting on with the original brief of the task. We did a great job digging, weeding and carefully replanting any valuable plants that we could rescue whilst the other two continued with their own agenda !

Job done

Thank goodness Craig and Nick finally got that root out! Belinda recorded everything and then we went to the pub for drinks and 50% off food ! Happy days !

See you all next week for ( hopefully ) the final chapter of the Heene rooms

Have a great week !

Julia xx

Report written by John and photos taken by Belinda Thank you both

On Monday seven of us returned to Heene Road Community rooms where we had previously done some weeding and clearing ready for early spring planting. Our return visit has been somewhat delayed due to the recent poor weather - the impact of which greeted us on arrival! The wet conditions and reasonably mild temperatures has triggered the regrowth of the weeds, and seems to have strengthened their resolve to continue the defend of their territory against tidiness and neat planting!

Fitting in the fitness

Meeting at the task meant there was to be fitness opportunities during the task. It seems that John was the only one to acknowledge that a proper gardening session is a good all over workout. Clearly they didn’t all dig it!

Julia sent off a trio of runners; with Paul mistiming his arrival slightly (just a minute later Paul, just a minute….) his brief hesitation when asked “was he running” was declared an affirmative and he set off with Sarah and Craig on a timed run.

Belinda and Daisy opted for the walking route, and Julia and John got stuck in to the clearance task.

Little weeds

Luckily the work previously done wasn’t a completely wasted effort. Much of the weed covering was rooted only just below the surface so loosening the soil with a fork enabled them to be lifted. This also meant we could avoid disturbing the bulbs which are beginning to sprout telling us that despite how the weather seems currently spring is really on the way.

I don’t give a fork

On return from their first run, the three speedsters were keen to get stuck in. Paul had brought along his own fork, and he was soon working like a human rotivator. Craig wrested the fork from a very reluctant John, who clearly was desperate to carry on digging, but graciously gave in. John must have already done a lot of the hard work. How else could it look as though Craig’s efforts were more efficient and successful. Sarah went in search of some accessories!

The walkers return

This heralded another quick change of role. The runners were sent off again with a simple instruction, nay, demand, from Julia: “Be quicker!” They were! Daisy got stuck into some weed gathering and bagging while Belinda focussed on ensuring our efforts were suitably recorded.

By the time it came to the final (“you must be even quicker!”) run Paul had clearly realised that a ‘fork holding workout’ was a ‘sufficient workout’ and he threw himself fully into single handedly clearing a huge patch of weeds.

It’s mostly fun

Although intriguingly there is, to date, no Strava evidence to support this, Craig and Sarah declared their final run as the fastest of the evening. Clear up and group photo time followed. John is still adamant that he was NOT throwing dirt and weeds at Daisy. She just happened to be in the “discard” area. It was no more than unfortunate timing. Honestly!

Absent friends

As always when we are working in a reasonably closed space there was plenty of time for chat. We discussed Sarah’s intriguing, but clearly successful rotational system, and asked after ‘absent’ GoodGymers wellbeing. Particular care and concern was expressed for Ryan who according to Sarah had had a ‘slight’ slip at the parkrun finish on Saturday when he may have ended up a ‘little’ dirty.

Just like Arnie

“We’ll be back” - here next week hoping to get the last of the area cleared ready for planting. And there will be beer (or other beverage of course) with a GoodGym Get Together following the task.

Great report and photos- thank you Belinda and John :)

A Frightfully Delightful Garden

On the eve of Halloween, I reached an epic 300 task milestone at the Heene Church community garden. Dressed as a skeleton it was also significant as a I rarely dress up!

This garden is one which I have ear marked as a makeover winter project for us to support Val and Rik from Friends of St Botolph's Church .

John got stuck in with some serious digging whilst our resident expert gardeners Rosalind and Gillybean working on speedy efficient weeding,

While the garden activities were underway, the rest of the team, comprising of RyanSarah, BelindaBarbara, Ricky, Duncan and Lucy embarked on a brisk walk along the nearby seafront. Despite the looming threat of rain, Sarah's presence was an outstanding surprise to me as she rarely steps out if there is even a 1% chance of rain 🤣 I felt very honoured 😇

When the walkers returned they donned gloves and pitched in to help. At this point the clock on count down until they were allowed to go to the pub! Several comments like ' it must be time' and ' 10 minutes must be over by now ', were heard loud and clear so I caved in.

We had filled 5 bags of debris so a great job done which John and I disposed of with plenty of help from Ros, Ryan and Sarah.

And so to the pub!

We sealed the evening with a lovely gathering at the pub where Duncan made a speech and I was awarded a very special bespoke needle felt of Hudson ( my gorgeous cocker spaniel ) with his mascot red and white regalia on . This had been very kindly made by John to commemorate my 300th task. Thankyou 🙏- so very much appreciated. Check out the photos to appreciate just how special this is to me. Thank you also, to each and everyone of you, that has made every single of my 300 tasks so memorable !

I'm signing off with gratitude and love to you all.

Julia xx 😍 xx

Welcome

Firstly a huge GG welcome to Vanessa who Sue brought along tonight. So good to meet you and we will look forward to seeing you at lots more tasks and socials !

It was our last visit of the year to St Botolphs Church Garden due to the nights being too dark to work in the garden. We were welcomed by our hosts Val and Rik and also joined by Sue from the friends of Heene Cemetery that is the closed cemetery attached to the Church.

Val asked us to continue what we started on our last visit which was attaching a framework of wire along side the old air raid shelter to train the ever growing ivy and also continue tidying the vicarage garden and also prune the boundary wall.

Belinda and John busily started on the wall using hammers, nails and wire to form a natural hook for the greenery to train on to.

Vanessa, Sue and Paula together with Val and Rik worked on the flowerbeds that lined the garden whilst Rosalind Sue and I tackled the pruning just within and outside of the wall. I think we definitely created the most mess which Paula helped me clear up!

Later on John and I demonstrated why its always good to work on strength training by shifting a huge concrete boulder. We were extremely pleased with ourselves !

The light went before our energy did so we has to make the decision to stop and say our goodbyes to Val, Rik and Sue until next year ( although we may see them again at Heene Road community garden )

What a lovely evening it was! and especially because we seem to have acquired a lovely new member to the group - Vanessa 😍😊

Have a great week and see you next Monday at The Dementia Hub in South Farm Road. Details to follow.

I will load up all tasks for the next few weeks tomorrow.

Julia xx