After last week’s social of all you can eat pizza which the wonderful Laurie arranged, we had a chance to burn off some calories with a run to a new task for us, helping SVP Springfield sort out their donations of kitchen items.

SVP help people in need by befriending them and providing practical help where necessary. Many thanks for Rosie for helping us connect with the project which is run by her sister Jenny.

We met up at the usual place at ARU and welcomed Ohad to his first GoodGym session, who recently started studying at the university. I hope you had fun Ohad and hope to see you again in the near future. With Andy backmarking we made our way to Springfield for our task.

When we arrived we were quickly shown what to do and got straight to it. Making boxes filled with kitchen basics so they can be sent out as soon as they are needed by people and families. The boxes contained plates, bowls, cutlery, mugs, glasses (which ran out very early on, hence my awful pun, I’m sorry), oven trays, saucepans, frying pans, dish cloths and various cooking utensils.

After all our hard work, Jenny from SVP treated us to some flapjacks and drinks, thanks Jenny!!! And off we went into the darkness back to the University, headtorch season is definitely upon us now.

Next week we are digging for Mencap, as the task is a bit too far to run from ARU we will be meeting at Admirals Park, near/on the bridge.

Our first social in aaaages!!!!

Thanks soooo much to Laurie for arranging.

Some drinks at The Bootmaker followed by unlimited Pizza at Moto.

What happens on the social, stays on the social!

This week we were back at our favourite allotment to see how our crops were doing. We started off with some news of a 70’s themed night that Laurie attended at the weekend. Some of the treats included vol-au-vents, quiche, bacon wrapped Spam (which I am assured is nicer than it sounds) and Bread and Butter pudding. Kirk then lead us along the river as Laurie backmarked on our short run to the allotment.

After the disappointment of our last group visit where the potatoes and tomatoes had caught blight there was unfortunately some more sad news in store for us. Upon arrival everyone got straight to work. Lucy and Jenny watered what they could but it soon became clear a few more of our plants had issues. The spinach, cabbage and spring onions have not grown but lots of weeds have. Joel picked a carrot to see how they were doing; ‘stunted’ was probably the best description. Clearly something had stopped them growing down into the soil, Kirk picked some of the radishes and discovered they had gone rotten.

Thankfully there were some good things; the peas seem to be growing well!! Laurie got under the netting to clear the weeds from around the Peas and give them some support, that’s dedication for you! And Jenny was able to harvest some Raspberries and Rhubarb stalks so along with the stunted carrots we have something to give to Sanctus. David also showed up with his strimmer to clear some of the pathways which was much needed and provided this week’s pun (thank David).

The rest of the session was spent trying to clear the patches of failed crops with thoughts turning to protecting our hard work so far over winter and preparing to start a fresh next year!

Next week we have our first social in about 18 months!! Drinks and Pizza on Thursday which you can sign up to here and we will be back at the allotment for our Group Run which you can sign up to here.

We met on a lovely warm evening at the usual place for my first GoodGym run lead since you-know-what! After a wonderful introduction we warmed up by opening and closing our gates, gotta get those hips moving!

We skipped off down the high street (ok, only skipping for about ten metres of it). It was lovely to see Grace at Mencap again after so long. They have been doing sensational work throughout the pandemic and managed to move to online provision in only three weeks after the first lockdown. Other volunteers had already started painting the corridor yellow, but had only done up to the height you could reach without climbing ladders! Obviously painting is one of our fortes, so we got stuck right in, ensuring the brand new flooring was left spotless. Ian and Kirk raced up the ladders (safely) to apply the first coats to those areas, with James and Laurie offering their assistance. Andy and Joel got to work on the more accessible areas. We all did a great job and I would particularly like to single out Ian for managing to not get his brand spanking new GG red tshirt covered in paint, a mighty impressive feat. We cleaned up, said our goodbyes, posed for a photo and jogged a slightly longer way back.

The Doodle poll for the September social is now live: https://doodle.com/poll/zqw2tks953vahuee?utm_source=poll&utm_medium=link as always, we will go for what gets most votes. All welcome!