❄️ 20 glorious GoodGymmers met on a chilly Monday evening for our weekly group run. We had some news and warmed up while chatting about our favourite meals to cook. (Lots of curry and risotto fans, alongside some Pad Thai 🍛)

🎅 Keen to keep warm, we headed off swiftly and enjoyed a Christmas light sightseeing (and people-dodging) run through town to Glen Gardens 🎄

🚲 Once there, we were met by a couple of keen cycling GoodGymmers and Iain from the council who was delighted to welcome us to tackle the autumn leaves that were dominating the park 🍂

🍝 We got to work quickly, with a crack team of 4 folk on (literally) the leaf compost bins aka “Leaf Lasagne”. They did a sterling job, digging and turning the leaves in the three bins, ready to be added to by Team Leaf 🍁

🌳 Speaking of whom, the rest of the gang grabbed tools to tackle the accumulation of leaves across the park. We had leaf hands (apparently not called clappers, who knew?!), rakes of many shapes and sizes and the infamous leaf-blower. Pete quickly stepped up for the latter and got to work. Mountains of leaves were swiftly blown/raked and then grabbed and dropped into bags and wheelbarrows to be transported to the leaf compost bins. Phew, incredible teamwork 💪

👌 Too many leaves to count were collected and received by the newly organised compost bins and it was soon time to head back through town to CVS 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

🦵Once there, we did a collection of exercises to strengthen our knees, as requested previously. I may have had some name-finding challenges so if anyone fancies suggesting an alternative name for “Nicky’s special squats”, that would be greatly appreciated 👍

🍻 And after some more stretching, it was time to head to the pub where we had a good chat about the upcoming January Challenge. Watch this space for more information 👀

On a relatively bright November morning, 7 GoodGymmers joined forces in running and cycling to help St Nicks prepare for a wildflower meadow on Rawcliffe Ings.

St Nicks, pals of GG York, had a number of volunteers planting wildflower plugs on a section of the ings. Fortunately, they were to be planted in one of the areas not covered in floodwater, so GG Scuba Team 6 stood down and GG York went along to help instead.

Despite some hiccups getting there, we eventually all arrived at the task and got right into it. Our patch was soon dotted with optimistic little saplings, which will hopefully grow and contribute to a more biodiverse area for humans and other animals to enjoy. While we worked, Abi gave us some useful advice on how to protect ourselves in the event of a shark attack, then experienced some guilt for stirring human-shark relations.

Before long we were done and made our way on (with several of us popping to the Dormouse for lunch, which despite the name does not have a Beatrix Potter style mouse working behind the bar.

Mission accomplished!

n.b. we weren't planting vines exactly, but i wanted to put that