This was a super busy week for GoodGym Swindon. With coach catch ups, shopping, prescription collections, gardening for one resident, supporting our local virtual parkrun and making desserts for isolating residents it's been a whirlwind of good deeds. But there was still room for one more task as we were in month two of lockdown and were looking forward to writing again to our friends at the Guinness Partnership in Swindon.

We first wrote to them back in April as a way of keeping in touch whilst our group runs are on hold, and to bring a little cheer during what can be difficult times for some. We'd had such a lovely response to our first round of post and were keen to fill the post bag again with more notes!

So ten volunteers each wrote to ten of our friends. We dug out our best colouring pencils, stickers, paints, postcards, and greetings cards to create something that we hope says "we're thinking about you".

Eli, who has just had his third birthday is our youngest contributor and created more lovely artwork. Another GoodGym youngster, Luke, created a beautiful picture of a rainbow fish - very topical - for one of the residents. After which he set off on his bike with dad, and sister Grace to pop it in the postbox, leaving Trainer Emma some quiet moments to catch up on the GoodGym weekly email 😂 Others sent postcards or printed pictures of us on previous GoodGym tasks. Tracey's handwriting has improved since last time but only marginally, so her letter came with another apology and a hope and prayer that it was in fact legible.

While the rest of the nation were battling with shortages of flour and yeast, we were having our own battles it seemed with lack of stamps, not ideal when there is no longer the option to quickly pop to the shops or post office! All the post was soon working its way through the snail mail system though, and we hope they all arrived safely.

While there is some gentle easing of the lockdown, it's worth remembering that this can become an even more difficult time for those who are continuing to isolate. We hope that our post arrives to find our friends all safe and well and with a little reminder that we're looking forward to getting back to see them in person when we can. Hopefully it won't be too long before we're putting down our pens and picking up our forks and trowels and helping out in their gardens.