Maybe it was the good weather, or maybe we were all excited to hear from Ben about his trip to South America, but for whatever reason, turnout for garden clearing at Meadow View Cottage last night was huge.

We welcomed new member Daniel on his first Good Deed ever and it was a 10/10 performance from the newcomer. He’s apparently an avid pub quizzer and even brought his own gardening gloves – what a pro.

Ben was fresh from his South American hikes and Rich was fresh from a week of intense hayfever, so obviously they decided to race each other. If the Olympics are short of stunning visual backdrops, then a sprint on the downhill bit of Chelmsford’s flyover towards Aldi is what they need. By the time the rest of us arrived – via Andy-style attempts at jumps for the camera – Ben had his breath back and Rich had invented lots of excuses for why he lost.

Sometimes when you’re asked to clear a path, you have to ask where it is first. That’s the kind of weed-filled thorny jungle we faced. But with gloves, secateurs and some aggressive trowel work, you wouldn’t be-leaf how quickly we filled the waste bags. Too quickly, actually – so, proper GoodGym style, someone had to jump in and stamp it all down. While we’re talking feet – socks. By some happy accident, the sock game from Ben (odd polka dots), Dave (armadillos, apparently) and Rich (mate, why are they so long?!) was INCREDIBLE. They’ve probably got a secret group chat to coordinate this kind of thing.

By the time weed packed up (see what I did there?) there were three bags of cuttings to move. After the run there and the squats to pull up weeds, it was upper body workout time as we lifted or dragged them into the front garden for disposal.

In case that makes us sound like we do fitness – tonight is the beer festival and with Daniel on our side, maybe we can return to the top spot in August’s pub quiz… Until then, run happy!

Joe

The four of us running eagerly arrived five whole minutes early, so we set off after only a bit of chatting. On our way we discussed Andy's unexpected love for a Quadrant breakfast, and what felt like a difficult very short run to our task.

We made it to the church before the rest of the group, and Stephen and Malcolm showed us to our task of digging a trench around the perimeter of the church, to help with damp levels inside the building.

Sallyann, Richard, Angela and Leanne soon followed, and everyone busily got digging, whilst Rich designated himself wheelbarrow disposal person.

We made huge progress along a couple of walls of the church in about half an hour in the rain, when our host said we'd done plenty for one evening.

Even though we complained about the rain, we still stood around in the rain chatting for a while, and after David confused a local woman with Angela Merkel we thought it was best to leave. Erin regretted her usual choice of hoodie in the rain, but did manage to keep her eyes open for the group photo!

Great work everyone, we'll be back to finish that trench!

See you all soon,

Laurie