Fading light

We arrived at St Botolph's on what had been a very gloomy day, meaning the light was fading fast. It was our last visit of the year to this pretty church garden under the watchful eyes of Rik and Val. However we will be aiming to get some work done at Heene Church rooms over the winter months,

Roxy and Suegot stuck straight into sweeping leaves with Belinda getting her steps in, wheelbarrowing big piles of leaves to and from the compost heap.

Paula and John worked on digging over the doomsday font that we had spectacularly unearthed several years ago before planting up some palms and other shrub that Val had provided. John, Roxy and I also moved a huge stone from the font area around the corner to where the other large stones/ rocks reside - Roxy stepped into help after I got distracted after completing 50% of the task !

Sue from Heene Cemetery did some great sweeping whilst Rik and Val, our leaders, beavered away weeing and clearing moss from gutters.

Happy Birthday to me!

Roxy had very kindly made me a yummy chocolate cake birthday which was still warm so we shared it out and I took home the remainder-such a kind thought. Thank you Roxy!

Next Monday

We are at Heene cemetery for our final visit of the year - Ideally we would like to start at 5:30 pm to catch the light.

*Welcome *

Tonights pun is dedicated to the newest members of our GG family

Handsome Ben was born to our very own Natacha and Steve last Friday whilst Nick and I welcomed our beautiful granddaughter Frankie Bea into the world last Wednesday. Very exciting all round ( and busy !) May they both have a wonderful life - maybe they may date each other one day 🤣😍

Mondays task

Back to this evenings task ..... We met up with Val and Rik who coordinate the volunteering in the church garden. Val is always super organised and has all the tasks on a board which is colour coded for both choice together with intensity guidance.

Gillybean got stuck in with digging out more unwanted shrubs ( I can't remember the name of them 🤣) It was good to learn that her heel is gradually improving and that she's getting the medical help she needs to expedite the process.

Belinda and Sue picked a high energy and very prickly job of pulling out very large brambles. They managed to clear a huge area so a great job done 👏

John also picked the strenuous job of digging over the area behind the old air raid shelter . The aim was to try and get it levelled too. Its fair to say that John went a long way to make this happen !

Barbara and Paula buddied up to pull persistent ivy off the stone wall. Paula was fresh from her 60th Birthday celebrations 🍾 and it was great to hear all about her adventures - especially the zip wire one! 😀

It was great to see Anne tonight who was helping Sue from Heene Cemetery with some pruning and sorting whilst Val dug over the compost heap and generally organised the whole task 😇

With the October light fading fast we finished up with a group photo and some chatter !

We are back next week for our final visit of the year to St Botolphs before the light goes.

Have a great week everyone and spare a thought for the sleep deprived new parents!

Julia xx

Birthday Celebrations 🍺 for John

It was a great turn out for Johns special day.

We spent 45 minutes doing a very productive litter pick of the surrounding areas. The Birthday boy himself, John teamed up with Mrs R, Belinda and together with Daisy Roxy and Paula they headed off in the direction of Windsor Lawns. For Daisy this was an irresistible opportunity for a competition to see who could fill their bag more 🤣 which they all good naturedly joined in with. For Mr and Mrs R it must surely have also been a trip down memory lane where they used to live.

Heading out in the opposite direction were our intrepid explorers Sarah and Ryan who were fresh from a weekend walking from Hove to Hastings. Joining them today was also Gillybean and Sue. We all feel for Gill who is missing her beloved running with a heel spur injury 😪.

Finally Barbara myself and Sueconcentrated on the area around Splashpoint where there was loads of rubbish caught in bushes 🥺

After completion we all headed up to the pub to raise a glass and knife and fork to John where we were joined by parents to be Natacha and Steve together with Ricky and Nick too. Happy Days 😍

Little by little

This was our third visit back to this leisure centre garden. It's a project that we have kind of adopted as we found it sad to see it uncared for. Gillybean has always led the way on this task and we are always happy to get behind her ideas to give a helping hand.

Tonights task was to get the rectangular area of ground prepared and planted with grass seed.

Belinda armed with John's pads got straight down on her knees to weed. Paula was also part of the weeding team and the two of them also chatted about their up and coming BIG Birthdays and how they were feeling about the milestone together with how they may be celebrating them.

John himself, got some great pruning of shrubs and brambles done at the far end of the garden where its very overgrown whilst chatting to Daisy who was busy raking reading for sowing.

Roxy in her signature style got into some energetic digging followed by scattering the grass seed and watering.

Gillybean was part of the weeding, raking and sowing team with me pitching in wherever needed including lots of watering, plus the all important, taking of photos.

We will wait to see how the grass seed takes and return to dig some borders so that we can plant lots of bulbs which will make it look wonderful next Spring

Next week it's John's Birthday so we will be combining a litter pick / walk / run with some celebrating 🍾 😀

*The new Andy *

11 of us arrived at Kamelia Kids to give a helping hand to this centre that provides care for all children including ones that need a bit of extra tlc.

Tonight we met Nick who has had to fill very big shoes as Andy has now retired. Nick has been there 3 months and was intrigued to learn who we are and what we do. He had been told a little about us so was already prepared with various jobs.

The main one was painting the outside toddler play kitchen which the majority of the group got stuck into.

Gillybean got straight into some pruning and tidying of shrubs and tomato plants. Ricky started on the brushing a play area then transferred to painting.

Meanwhile Belinda and Paula began a massive sweep and tidy of the playground- this was a huge task as there was so much sand ! As quickly as we swept it seemed to re appear again !

*Meanwhile in the kitchen.......

Everyone was trying to avoid getting paint splattered by Sarah 🤣 John in particular was on high alert ⚠️ The competition was on to see which group could finish their end first Whilst John and Sarah were playing their games 🤣 Paul, Anne, Sue , Ryan all worked really quickly to get the whole kitchen done including all the fiddly bits ! It was a wonderful before and after transformation and very satisfying for all involved. 👌

Great job team 👏

See you next week for the cemetery pruning and social - more info to follow.

Have a great week !

Julia x