What a wonderful sunny frosty day for a Waterways session! Morning started with an absolutely marvellous mix of frost and sunshine as we all walked to the Widbrook stream with our tools and pallets.

Rachel, Tony, and Sol joined Maidenhead Waterways volunteers to pull out reeds, bulrushes and other plants to widen the stream to increase water flow.

Tony had a full drysuit, and he joined other waders in the water. Sol and Rachel helped from the bank as water level was too high.

Rachel commented on a stinky smell, which was created by mud around the roots of bulrushes. We made jokes as we were trying to get access to water through overgrowth of bulrushes. It was such a good laugh as we found our way to balance our weight on pallets.

Tea break came soon enough with much welcomed coffe and biscuits. And chatting away.

We reach the point were the road crosses the stream. We stopped for the day and will restart the other side of the road at the next session.

Such a good workout! Such a good deed done! Such a good feeling of satisfaction!

This evening we had our annual torch-lit adventure to Burchett's Green Infant School to help uncover the playground from a blanket of leaves.

We met at the Butterfly Trail Car Park armed with lots of lights, welcomed everyone, warmed up and headed off into the dark, dark woods of Maidenhead Thicket.

We came up with a game called 'Rabbits and Fox' to challenge the runners whilst keeping them in sight of the walkers. If I called 'Rabbits', the runners turned heel and ran back the way we had come, until I yelled 'Fox' and they ran back to the walkers. Depending on where we were on the route in relation to obstacles like gates, I sometimes switched it up and called 'Fox' first to send the runners ahead, before 'Rabbits' brought them back to the walkers again. It was a great way not to lose anyone! The walkers covered just over 2km, whilst runners did over 3km.

We were welcomed at the school by head teacher Mr Harris, and by GoodGymer Tony, who had made his own way to the school so he could bagsy the leaf blower.

We quickly got stuck into the task and made great progress sweeping up leaves, bundling them into hippo bags and tipping them out of the playground. We were provided with some excellent tools for the job, including a broom perfect for a 5 year old and a plastic tractor, which Nicola and Jess put to good use.

Sol, Matthew, Scarlett and Emily made unbeleafably quick progress at the far end of the playground and Claire did a broomin' marvellous job on the steps, while Tony was chatting away on the blower.

While we worked, Mr Harris recovered some balls from beyond the fence and Nicola and Jess seemed to be having so much fun with them, it only seemed right that the rest of us down tools and join in. I asked them to come up with a fun fitness game for us and they did not disappoint. We had to leap over a crate, weave in and out of buckets, throw, catch and duck! Sol liked it so much she had a second go.

Then it was time for a quick group photo on the climbing frame, an even quicker weeeee down the slide, a goodbye to Tony and Mr Harris, and a second round of Rabbits and Fox on the way back.

It is always a treat to head away from the bright lights of Maidenhead and into nature. The woods and fields can be spooky, but with lights and friends they feel safe and even magical. It was a chilly evening, but our walk/run, super satisfying task and fitness game warmed our bodies, and the good company, silhouetted trees, moonlit clouds and stars warmed our spirits!

See you there same time next year?

21, yes you read it correctly, 21 amazing goodgymers met at the Natures Haven Garden at front of Maidenhead Community Centre. Amy our lovely leader wasted no time in greeting us, introducing Claire C and Aleks from Nature Haven and explaining the evening’s plans before embarking on a well needed warm up session on this chilly November night.

The group divided up into a running and two walking groups, our destination was Waitrose where we donated to the Foodshare collection box.

Once back at the Community Centre the task was a continuation of our last visit, clearing more of a densely planted bank, so tools at the ready, muscles flexed, let digging commence.

Pretty soon there were whoops and cheers as root stumps were raised in the air in celebration as one by one they were liberated from the ground. As time passed numbers were randomly shouted out, 3,6, 8 !! these were the number of stumps dug out. The record was 11, and the dream team was Tony and Ben; there was nothing wooden about their performance!!

Bush-whisperer Kanika also deserves a special mention. She freed one stump by winking at it!

Mandy and Anne-Laure also worked ex-tree-mely hard in another part of the garden and after much pushing and pulling they became the proud parents of root baby twins.

Among us lesser mortals, moans and groans could be heard as we struggled to ease the root balls, who knew these shrubs had soooo many roots. Gillian was a trooper and never gave up, pulling and pushing at these pesky stumps.

And as our arms and legs tired we were rewarded with a snap and a pop, the roots came free, what a re-leaf!! another one bites the soil. We mustn’t forget all the work that clearing up gang did, depositing the roots and sweeping up all the debris.

All our hard toil was rewarded with very welcome cups of hot chocolate and toasted marshmallows. Thank you so much to Claire and Aleks for your kind hospitality.

With the happy satisfaction of completing the task, tummies full of hot chocolate and marshmallows and the faint odour of smoke in our hair we headed home. We wooden have it any other way!!

Sol and Tony joined Friends of Maidenhead Waterways in their continued work on Widbrook Stream.

You may ask - why such a title? Well, there was a strech of stream that was overgrown with wild plant that may be part of "water-cress family". It looked like patch of salad on the water!!!

Since it had rained a lot over last 2 weeks, the water level was higher than previous weeks. As soon as Tony, Gill and Jenny enrtered the water, their waders had only 6 inches spared from water spilling over, making more difficult to move around.

They all reported being wet an hour later, pulling all kinds of faces and sounds of them getting more wet as time went on.

Sol was working from the bank pulling weeds out of water with a long rake. It was a joint effort to work in team.

Sun came out to warm up the day one hour into our task, which made the day even more enjoyable.

Jenny and Gill left earlier as they were wet. The remaining volunteers continued to work a bit longer.

We all agreed to bring a batch of changeover clothes for the next session.

More sessions to continue.