Making the most of another sunny Sunday, GoodGym Cambridge headed out in force to Fox Den Community Allotment 🦊

Coming straight from a Social Mission, Catherine and I cycled over the together, and waiting for us were Daiana and Andrew. Soon after came Sandra and our two newest GGers, Anakha and Princy - welcome, both! 🙌

With Fox Den first timers getting the grand tour and introduction, we put on our gloves and picked up our tools to get stuck in! Daiana, Sandra and I had fun navigating the allotment paths with wheelbarrows full of woodchip to cover exposed areas, before assembling the Royal Cambridge Bug Hotel 🪲🐞🐛

A few rows across from us, Catherine helped the tomatoes get the support they needed, guiding the plants upwards and saving them from getting trampled 🍅

Pride of place in the middle of the allotment, Andrew, Princy and Anakha made impressive work of clearing the pond. A fantastic effort for their first visit and all should be really proud of what they accomplished! 💪

Excitingly, we even made a new friend in the form of a very friendly and cuddly cat. We all downed tools for a brief fuss! Now to decide on GG cat accessories for our latest recruit... 🐈‍⬛️

Before we left, the group gathered to congratulate Daiana on reaching 10 good deeds 🥳 We love having you as part of our team, and we look forward to seeing what you do with your next 10 deeds! As is traditional now, we celebrated with some delicious cake, and reflected on another lovely afternoon. A few even stayed on to harvest potatoes, so I think it's safe to say a good time was had by all! 😊

GoodGym Cambridge was back at SIN Cru this week, once again combining a group run with a community mission 💪

Scott, Christopher, Kate, Beth, Catherine and I met at Parkside Pools to lock up our bikes and set off on the 3.6 km jog to our destination (at least my watch recorded the whole distance! 😛). Along the way, we chatted about recent holidays, restaurant visits, parkrun tourism/obsession and how much we need some rain in Cambridge. Little did we know...

Sandra and Alan were waiting for us at SIN Cru, with Sandra ready to capture our majestic "Baywatch" moment after being too in awe to do so last time. Following the obligatory dog-petting, we got to work in the garden space. Today, Alan and Chris quickly got a handle on some very active shovel action, clearing rather compacted soil and leveling the ground ready for a patio space which Kate and Beth gathered bricks for. Sandra and Catherine cleared an impressive amount of ivy from a wall, whilst Scott and I enjoyed the more sedate task of dead-heading the plants. Once we'd filled the compost area (and scritched the dogs some more), we gave the refreshed plants a much needed watering with some collected rainwater. Oh, how naive we were...

Then, we were off: it was party time! Sandra and Alan led the way by bike, meeting Ilse at Jesus Green for our July social. Beth and Kate joined on foot, while the rest of us legged it back to collect our bikes and grab more party food. Only mildly questioning the dark clouds, we gathered for a picnic. Amongst the MANY tasty treats were some homemade pastry wheels, courtesy of Ilse - a firm favourite amongst the snacks! We look forward to sampling your future recipe experimentation 🤤

It turns out I really do like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain: not long after we'd sat down and set up the picnic, the sky opened and gave us ALL the rain we'd been missing these past few weeks! We stood our ground until we feared for the structural integrity of the snacks, eventually taking shelter and laughing at how unfortunate our timing was. A key moment of the night was celebrating Beth's 10 deed milestone - congratulations!! Sorry we temporarily blinded you, but hope the Colin made up for it 📸

Once the rain had eased up enough, we escaped to a nearby pub to warm up and dry out for the rest of our social. We didn't let a bit of water spoil our fun, but fingers crossed next month's is a little drier! 🤞

An evening of firsts for GoodGym Cambridge.

Firstly, a new task, joining Coton Loves Pollinators at their pollinator patch allotment site.

We welcomed Izzy and John to their first GoodGym session 👋 (Spoiler alert: It was a great one!)

In another first for us, we met to cycle to the task. Surprising considering we live in the city of cycling! We enjoyed a beautiful route (including the new cycle street) out West of Cambridge through the countryside.

As we got into Coton, a fantastic personalised sign greeted us and led the way to the site. We met the brilliant Bridget who showed us down to the allotment to meet the rest of the group, who had already been busy getting the polytunnel frame up!

John and Izzy used their height advantage to help with the polytunnel cover. In just 20 minutes the polythene was on and held taught by Izzy's very satisfying wire work. Eventually, the tunnel will be covered in transparent photovoltaic panels, generating electricity from UV, whilst allowing visible light though to grow plants. Very clever ☀️

The rest of the group got started on planting in a new patch, extending the growing space. As we were breaking new ground, gadget expert Anna, let us use an earth auger to drill the holes for the plants. Naturally, we all wanted a go...the ease, the power! Sandra and Alice led the drilling and Ilse took the lead with planting. Going in were beans and sunflowers, a companion planting dream, with the sunflowers providing a growth surface for the bean vines and the beans fixing nitrogen in the soil for nutrition. Win,win. 🌻🫛

With yet another fun tool, Anna gave us a plant taping machine (definitely not a label maker) to attach the stems to the support pole for the early growth stages. Once we'd got the hang of it, it was another very satisfying job.

With 40 plants in the ground and the main polytunnel up, we paused to admire the beauty of the pollinator patch, and just when we thought the evening couldn't get any better, Bridget arrived with scones and tea! All homemade and warm from the oven, what a treat. We couldn't ask for better way to enjoy the end of a beautiful evening 💛