☀️ In contrast to the torrentially wet weather for last Monday’s group run, tonight was pleasantly sunny. 26 of us gathered, bound for West Bank Park.

👋 We were thrilled to welcome Iñaki for his first GoodGym session, and Beth for her first group run. We hope you both had fun!

🦸‍♂️ We were also delighted to celebrate Paul Kelly’s 300th good deed, giving him the honour of wearing the special cape of joy (and celebrating further with him at the pub at the end of the task!)

🇪🇺 We named, numbered and warmed up while saying our favourite European country (in honour of Eurovision so Australia featured, obviously!) Spain, Italy and Ireland were popular choices, along with Yorkshire (of course it should be a country).

🏃‍♀️🚲🚶‍♂️We then headed to West Bank Park, on foot or bike where we were greeted by Kristina who had a plethora of tasks for us.

👑 We split into two main groups for pond vs pruning. The pruning was due to be around Queen Victoria, to uncover her. So the first question was “Where is Queen Victoria?”, followed by “Where is her nose?”, followed by “When’s her next bath?” (not for a while yet apparently as she had one last year and is likely to go fully green before her next!) Anyway, the team cracked on with some pruning, very efficiently, so they were soon finished and onto the next task.

🌼They then headed to a lovely meadowy area, with strict instructions to take care of the two bluebells there. There were various jobs in there, including pulling up dock leaves (which means we got to hear about Carl’s delicious-sounding stuffed dock leaves, and then Kristina’s equally delicious-sounding wild garlic birthday risotto!) The other job was trimming the new hedge/border back, using the 3 Ds principles - pruning dead, damaged and diseased in that order.

🐸 Meanwhile, the pond area was a hive of activity (literally - the pond itself was teeming with life, which was lovely to see - frogs and tadpoles galore!) The GoodGymmers were pretty busy too, weeding the dreaded ground elder from the flowerbed edges. Pete took his shoes and socks off immediately and waded into the pond (I’m not entirely sure why, possibly to retrieve a plant that needed moving?)

🌿 Another group were doing complicated manoeuvring with some wie to protect a newly-created hedge. Meanwhile, Beth, Leanne, Martin B were busy chopping out something beginning with P (we quickly forgot what) from within a large holly tree. They made a huge difference very quickly and then moved the cuttings to create a barrier for the pond.

💪 SO much got done this evening so thank you very much to everyone. And that was before the fitness! We did triple jump-based relays where everyone had to run, hop, skip and jump in turn to see which team could do it the fastest. There was some incredibly impressive stuff and thank you everyone for getting stuck in with what was a slightly more hardcore fitness session compared to some recently.

📸 As it turned out I’d forgotten to take the group photo, we did that then, and headed back to base. Once there, we cooled down, stretched off and parted ways. Oh, and we even avoided the brooding threat of rain that was lurking for the run back 🥳

🙌 Thank you everyone, I hope you have a great week and hopefully see you soon!

*Credit to Carl for the pun 👍