Wooooah, we're (roughly) halfway there! Woooooooooooooah! And paint is in our haaaair!

This week we were tackling the most intricate part of the ICCA's railings so far – the double gate!

We were wondering what the letters in the middle of each gate were and I'm pleased to tell you that I found out. The building was originally a factory for Thomas Forman and Sons – apparently inspired in design by Buckingham Palace. Every day's a school day.

I'm not sure if it was the heat making it super gloopy or what, but the paint was still as unwieldy as it was back in the dark and windy nights we were here in the winter and spring, so we all came home sporting various levels of paint coverage ourselves. Rachel had to bathe her legs in white spirit to get hers off!

We also welcomed back Florence and Elspeth after some time away. Hopefully see you all again soon!

This week saw us return to the Meadows Food Bank. Did you know it was the venue for GoodGym Nottingham's first "proper" task nearly three years ago? Leah, Peter and Rachel were all there for it, and by the way the tasks fell, it turned out to be the venue for Leah's 100th this week. Most serendipitous!

We met up with Mark as usual on arrival who had plenty for us to get stuck into.

Leah and Peter summoned up their inner Dale Wintons for a round of Supermarket Sweep, boxing up two-person packages ready to be bagged and sent home with service users in the coming days. Meanwhile, Khiltee, Nigel and Florence were on clothes duty, hanging things up on rails and making it look a lot nicer. Matt, Sarah and Charlie were bagging up toiletry packs (somehow that stock of mini soaps is still going).

Finally, it was all hands on deck sorting out the dried pasta stocks, making sure everything went in the right date order so the older stuff gets distributed first.

We just had time to gobble a few celebratory muffins and flapjacks before heading our separate ways.

No task next week, but we're back at Sherwood Community Centre on 3 June!

it was a return visit to the Carrington Community Garden last night in, would you believe, daylight! The council parks team had made a start earlier that day but there was still plenty to do
Guided by councillor Nayab (thank you for the snacks!) and Mark (ably assisted by Jack the dog) Nigel, Natalie, Florence and Peter were trying to detangle ivy from a tree. Elsewhere, Matt (now just one away from the coveted black shirt!) spent the evening attacking brambles (apart from when his extra height and agility were required!). So good to be back outdoors with no torches - here's to a long summer of GoodGym tasks

Despite the violent swings between rain and hail earlier today, somehow it wasn't Wet Wet Wet when we got to the ICCA this week. It was Cold Cold Cold though.

We picked up the kit from our hosts and headed outside to carry on where we left off a few weeks ago.

This time we gave the railings a good rub down with some sandpaper to get rid of the worst of the flaking paint before forging forward along the railings.

The light aaaalmost lasted the whole of the task, and one passerby did offer us the flash from his phone towards the end.

Fingers a little frozen, we headed inside to warm up, and got a lovely serenade from Matt on his otamatone during photo time.