When I arrived at Foodcycle this evening, Luton Goodgym legend Gill had already sprinkled a portion of magic on the evening as she had done the rounds and collected the donations for the evenings menu. After conversations about ingredients at the last session, I donated a big block of cheese 🧀 and some flour, and we decided to make some Mac 'n' Cheese as part of the evenings menu. There was a full team in the kitchen and they got stuck in to some serious chopping to prep ingredients for a carrot soup, a stir fry and rainbow salad to accompany the Mac 'n' Cheese. Dessert was baked bananas with chocolate flapjack. In amongst the fantastic array veggies that Gill had dropped off earlier, there were a few packs of mushrooms 🍄, so I decided to jazz up the cheesey pasta delight by squeezing in some of the fantastic fungi . Over 40 people attended the community meal and I feel confident saying everyone left being suitably refreshed. I really enjoyed this task and look forward to helping out again.

I wasn’t due to be volunteering for Foodcycle today but had a panicked text from their office to say that no one had volunteered to collect the surplus food from the supermarkets. Although I had a packed day already, after some juggling of my diary and precision logistics I agreed to fit it in between another GoodGym task and a trip to London. I knew timing would be right but it was just about doable.

All was going well and I arrived at Sainsburys at the given time, and hoped to sweep in, pick up the produce and sweep out again. Unfortunately the new supervisor did not share my enthusiasm for speed and decided to keep me waiting on the shop floor for half an hour. I was getting really twitchy but you can’t complain when you’re picking something up for nothing. Eventually she took me down to the back of the shop where my usual guy was waiting for me and asked why I was half an hour late!!!

It was worth waiting for, however, as he had organised a massive stack of food for us. So much so I had to do two trips to the car with my 🛒.

By now the traffic was building up so I drove as fast as I could (just above snail’s pace 🐌) to get to Aldi, where unfortunately their manager was busy. So again I was kept waiting , and after 15 minutes she arrived , went to look for the surplus and came back empty handed!

I was now running over time, but by the time I got to the church fortunately the volunteers on the cooking team were poised to empty the car load and let me on my way.

Managed to get to the station within minutes of my train, and with a bit of sprinting and leaping made it on board. Now getting my breath back and hoping they cook up a fabulous meal.

Back again for round two of Goodgymers Luton postal service with flyers for the High Town Christmas Fair this coming weekend. This afternoon was wonderfully sunny but chilly so the team worked at a brisk pace to keep fingers and toes warm.

Yasin and Gill worked to the right hand side of the streets and Musa and Tigger took the left. The upcoming festival information distributed up the hills and down and around the town.