After the end of November gave us a sneaky surprise, four noble Goodgymers added a last-minute task to an already busy week for Goodgym York.

We came, we sorted, we found a new favourite book each - Richard opted for the Ups and Downs of being in your 40s, Nikki learned how to test her cat, Lucy took the Little Book of Cheese... and Mitch managed to pick a book with neither words nor title.

😁 21 brilliant Goodgymmers gathered for this evening’s group run, cited as possibly one of the most random and/or mudtastic yet. More on that later though.

🌧️ Sadly, the weather wasn’t quite as good as we might have hoped but we’ve never let that put us off!

🍮 Ed led the warm up where we got our mouths watering discussing our favourite puddings, in honour of national cream pie day. Winter classics such as crumble and sticky toffee pudding (with a variety of accompaniments) made the cut, along with some inspired by recent baking activity (cinnamon buns or white chocolate and ginger cheesecake, anyone?)

🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️With our legs warm and our stomachs rumbling, Ed led the running group to West Bank Park whilst Abi led the walkers.

🌹 On arrival, Kristina gave us our expected compost-shovelling instructions for the new flowerbeds in the rose garden, along with some unexpected bonus tasks. Martin and Stef leapt into the skip to start shovelling from there into the first barrows. Meanwhile, Kristina took a few people with her to construct temporary barrow paths with cardboard.

⚽️ She also sent some people to the goalposts on the football pitch with tampers to commence one of our more unusual tasks, something that was fondly named “wet mud flooring” (as opposed to dry stone walling). Once the barrowers had dropped off their compost at the new flowerbeds in the rose garden, they collected “turf” (mostly mud with the odd blade of grass) and barrowed that back to the football pitch. The ground around one goal mouth in particular was particularly sloppy so Team Tamp were charged with laying/tessellating the pieces of turf and tamping it down to form a new (and slightly less sloppy) layer on top.

🤔 Whilst some doubt was expressed when some water started soaking upwards through the new layer, Kristina reassured us that this is a tried and tested technique that will improve the ground. Whilst our housemates may not have appreciated the next level mud attached to the tampers’ trainers, hopefully the footballers will appreciate their efforts.

💪 Soon, it was time to down tools and do a quick couple of rounds of “Meet and Retreat” for fitness before we headed back to base, stamping mud off en route.

🙌 Thanks everyone, and don’t forget that Kristina’s kindly letting us have the final compost scrapings for our Tiny Forest on Kimberlow Hill. So if you’ve got any spare time 11-12 on either Thursday morning or Friday morning please join Claire to help gather this invaluable resource!

🍁 18 excellent GoodGymmers met on a lovely November evening for an autumnal classic - leaf-clearing.

🎇 Ed led the group to Glen Gardens, which was locked and dark on our arrival. We soon heard from our task owner Iain that he’d gone to Clarence Gardens by mistake so he quickly headed over to join us at Glen. In the meantime, we did our fitness session first (which proved to be a popular option!), which was a belated (and tenuously-linked) bonfire bonanza. Thus followed sparkler skipping, toffee apple squats, Catherine wheel side crunches and rocket sprints. These sprints were then extended to the different entrance that Iain arrived at with the van.

🌬️ We got to work quickly and split into teams to tackle different parts of the park. Neil took on the blower challenge, moving between the groups to blow leaves in the right direction to be raked, leaf-handed then bagged/barrowed. Meanwhile, the leaf bin crew were tackling the three bins, moving the compost that was already there to make space for the new leaves. There was even space for a small amount of fun, including the moment (captured on camera) when Ed may have dropped some leaves on Max's head...

🥳 In no time at all, we’d filled the bins and the paths and grass area were both noticeably clearer of leaves than when we arrived. Iain was very grateful and will be ready at Clarence Gardens when we go in a couple of weeks for more leaf-clearing action.

⏰ It was soon time to head back to base and on to the pub for most of us while others headed home.

🙌 Thank you everyone, and hopefully see you again soon!

Mr and Mrs C needed a bit of furniture rearranging to make life easier for them at home. They were very glad when Goodgym were available to lend a hand - and even more impressed when we managed to swap round the furniture from their upstairs bedroom to the downstairs bedroom in just 17 minutes!