Despite the rain this evening, a super sixteen GG Yorkies put on their running kit and left their houses to clear leaves at Clarence Gardens.

We warmed up by practising some important leaf clearing techniques, including the leaf pick-up squat, compost-turning lunges and the all important leaf-catching leaps. Then it was off to Clarence Gardens. Most of the group took a short detour to see the Christmas lights around the Minster, while Vicky, as backmarker took the executive decision to head straight there - meaning everyone arrived at almost the same time!

Taskowner, Iain set a small group the task of turning the compost bins to make room for a fresh batch of leaves, while the rest of the group divided into rakers, picker-uppers and bag draggers.

Paul Kelly came up with an excellent suggestion for finding leaves:

We should try under the trees

Which led to a big haul with many tonne bags filled, dragged and emptied.

Mission accomplished, we assembled for a game of alphabet fitness (during which Dom noticed that "the alphabet is really long" ) before heading back to base.

Incidentally, "E is for Energetic cheering" seemed to be the most popular exercise - which will probably come in very handy if you're thinking of Marshalling at Chase the Pud this Sunday. 📣👏😁

😁 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!