Litter picking with Helen around and about the roundabout. A couple of bags picked helping keep our community proud.

A cool morning, sunshine on Castle Park and a few hills to conquer. All before 10am!

Smiles, high-fives and sprint finishes all round.

5000 metres complete and 53 metres location gained to start a weekend.

A lovely evening of chatter and gardening in Pam's company is just what Wednesdays are about! Throw in some gooseberries, strawberries and rhubarb and you have a fruity reward for the watering, chopping and weeding!

I am not sure why I thought of this title but actually it may sum up the goodgym vibe - "Cause, as Meghan Trainor sings, every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top".

The allotment is one of the urban green oasis and even with a noisy strimmer and trains, we heard a wonderful wren song and found some weird insects (maybe a 10 Spot Ladbird) or the 30 days of wild that Helen completing.

Next time at the allotment we will clear the growth around the fruit trees we planted 5 years ago!

See you at the weekend...

Completed a BeeWalk for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. Rearranged from the weekend, as conditions were very hot then, plus thunderstorms were forecast. We saw lots of bees on the roses and lavender.

Three Goodgymers and two honorary members walked 3km in Cymbeline Meadows near to the City Centre. Our mission was to spend mindful time together observing, recording and enjoying our local surroundings. The Meadows are host to a wide variety of Flora and Fauna some of which we were able to identify and record. First on the list was a ‘stick’ identification task courtesy of Bonnie. It turns out you can have a big stick and a small stick which later were used to reenact the traditional Pooh sticks game from a bridge over the River Colne. At first glance the green long-grass meadow seemed bland but looking further there were at least 6 varieties of grass waving in the breeze. Looking deeper into the meadow thicket there was an explosion of colour from Bulbous Buttercups to joyous Oxeye Daisy with a carpet of Field Scabious, Cornflower and Corncockle. The hedgerows were awash with flowering Dog Rose. What a treat! Along our route we had been carefully looking out for Bumblebees. With all the meadow flowering still in bloom thankfully we saw many, mostly White-tails. Helen had brought her bee identification booklet helping us to decide which of Britain’s 24 Bumblebee species we were looking at. Standing on a footbridge over the river we all watched the intricate dancing Damselflies and Dragonflies. The electric blue flashes making our eyes flit side to side. At halfway we stopped to record a tree for the ‘Treezilla’ project. With the aid of a smartphone we were able to detail a chosen tree’s species and type, height, trunk girth, crown diameter and general health condition. We chose a Common Lime with its wonderful delicate yellow flowers. With recordings taken we set off down the farmers track and were treated to lovely birdsong. Using a bird identification app Helen and Anna were able to identify Skylark, Greater Whitethroat, Chiffchaff and Blackcap amongst many others. Frazer and Bonnie completed the wild walk with a game of Pooh sticks, I wonder who won?

Riverside walk picking up rubbish.

With the glimmer of warmer weather coming to the UK, 8 Goodgymers met up to clear the spring flowers from 10 large tubs ready for the summer blooms on Colchester’s iconic High Street. In fairness the warm weather hadn’t quite arrived so we all set to work on vigorous clearing to keep ourselves warm. Pam delivered recycling bags and garden tools to all of us and Frazer wielded a fork to loosen the existing roots. With 10 tubs to fork, clear, weed and litter pick we had our work cutout for us to complete the task in time. Pam, resplendent in a shiny new car, realised that she’d have to do multiple journeys to the compost pile so we could have a steady supply of empty sacks. As usual there was friendly banter with town goers intrigued to know what we were up to. Our answer was “take a look tomorrow, the tubs will be full of wonderful summer colour”, Colchester in Bloom once again. With all the clearing up done, except for the cheeky rook flinging the fresh soil back out of the tubs in search of juicy worms, we said our farewells and made our way home.