It was a dark and stormy night - no, it actually wasn’t this time…it was a night of no particularly memorable weather as 18 Goodgymers met at the Community Centre to help the Maidenhead Community Allotment. It was great to see so many people, and to welcome new face Adam, for the last Wednesday session of the January challenge. This was combined with towel collecting for the other last task of the month, as we’re all really quite obsessed at this point. We may not have won but we absolutely smashed our target and that’s what really matters. On a slightly less cheesy note, this will also provide motivation for when we crush everyone else next year. In a nice, community-spirited way. There was also a distinct lack of rubbish along the route to the task, conclusively proving (because I say so and I’m the one with the words) that we’ve had a real impact with all the litter-picking-up this month.

Once at the task, we were divided into groups and given a number of things to do to help the allotment prepare for the new year. There was moving piles of dirt to the correct places, stamping on said piles of dirt to make it look nice, digging up weeds and artichokes, ensuring the weeds and artichokes were put in separate piles, and a bit of drama over some leaky butts. I have been given permission to use as many butt puns as I can think of but, despite the temptation, I don’t want to make you all crack up too much.

The time flew by and suddenly we’d done all the things that needed to be done and were being herded into a circle for the fitness part of the night - a Goodgym classic where one person chooses an exercise for everyone else to do and then runs around the circle. We left the task with a sense of both achievement and exhaustion, bags full of artichokes, and a little more exercise as we tried not to step in the remainder of the water from the (now no longer leaky) butts.