Happy 1st Birthday GoodGym Manchester

This evening, we met up for a jog followed by exquisite pizza and beer at Sandbar on Grosvenor St.

A ~4.3 km route covering the city centre near Bridgewater Hall, Hulme, Manchester Science Park, the UoM, and Oxford Road before settling on a watering hole.

Special kudos to Pavel for his first running workout 💪 for a while and was a good chatty run and pub trip discussing Halloween 🎃, Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, Glossop, hot pot, gardening, GoodGym, and mushroom growing.

We were well lit, with an umbrella 🌂 on hand for the Manchester rain. See you all soon for more GoodGym Manchester exploits.

Wholesome afternoon with some work but mostly eating!

Peter helped with some of the food prep, with his impressive pumpkins 🎃 stealing the show providing decoration and produce for a tasty pumpkin curry. Alongside the curry was Saag Aloo and beetroot pasta using ingredients from the Green Rooms allotment plot. Rice and Naan accompanied with some delicious deserts; plum crumble and a tasty chocolate & courgette cake, again using produce from the allotment. We both provided help with the "homemade" custard...

Lots of tasty food, karaoke, and an all round celebration for the project led by Katie and the young people and volunteers who have chipped in throughout the summer & autumn.

After a thorough clean and today, we got our tupperware of leftovers to head home.

Peter and Ben went along to GRIT Studios in Salford to help prepare a wall for a new masterpiece to be painted on Sunday 🎨

With buckets of soapy 🧼 water and sponges 🧽 we gave the wall a thorough clean, using steps and a longer broom to reach the higher spots. After throwing cold water to remove any suds and scrubbing the grimy floor, we checked out and ran back to Manchester.

Look forward to seeing the art work! We'll be back preparing an old toilet block for a mural before too long.

Peter and Ben both decided to combine a foodbank run with another ivy clearing and planting session at Gorse Hill Studios. We joined Katie, Duncan, Cathy, and Rebecca.

We dug, hacked, chopped, cut, pulled, sawed, and pickaxed our way through the never-ending ivy growing around bushes and fences.

We burned some of the vegetation and piled it ever higher. We found lots of spiders 🕷 and saw the plans and prep for the pond. The cup of tea 🍵 and a kitkat also helped on a warm and sweaty evening ☀️ There was also some planting of other plants 🪴 in between the hedge trees 🌳 we had planted a few weeks ago.

Following the session, Ben took a collection of tins 🥫 milk 🥛 crackers, strawberry 🍓 and raspberry jam, rice pudding, tinned fruit and veg, and some spaghetti 🍝 hoops to a nearby drop off for Manchester South-Central foodbank.

Peter and Ben joined Katie from Gorse Hill Studios to help out at the allotment where EVERYTHING had grown, including the weeds 🌱

We arrived to a green carpet mostly of bindweed and other weeds, plus the polytunnel tomatoes 🍅 had grown out of control.

While Katie tended the polytunnel, Peter tended to his pumpkin 🎃 patch, which was looking very good and growing, and Ben aggressively attacked the weeds around the site, forming big piles in his wake.

We made friends with a few frogs 🐸 caterpillars 🐛 slugs, ladybirds 🐞 and a few spiders 🕷.

In just over 2 hours, we made serious progress, even planting out some chilli 🌶 and salad 🥗, and harvested plenty of plums, apples 🍎, and a courgette. The onions 🌰 were left out to dry too.

Great effort 💪 just imagine how much we could do with a bigger group.