*Waking the dead *

We returned to one of our favourite task venues at Heene Cemetery for our second summer visit. Sue had asked us to assist with some pruning and also some cutting up and bagging of previous pruning activities.

Special mention to Sarah and John who worked their socks off this week ( as we all know they always do 🤣) and who do enjoy special accreditations for their great work 😍

Ryan and Belinda also quietly cracked on shadowing Sarah and John's great work happily doing so without any external validation ( Ryan took a fair bit of banter in his strlde from John too !! )

*High Stakes *

Health and safety guru Craig returned to GG tonight on the promise of a pint afterwards 😀 🍺 Its just as well he did as Paul was up to his tricks up a ladder pruning a large tree ! Kevin, a new volunteer for the friends of Cemetery , stood steadfastly holding the ladder the whole time whilst Craig joined the climbing activities 🤣

Also working constantly hard was Gillybean Anne and Stephen It was great to have some amusing great chat surrounding lots of subjects including divorcing in your 60' s ( who gets the dog or cat ) and Steve and Natacha's GoodGym baby who will be with us within the next 8 weeks !

*All bagged up *

We filled 5 huge grabs which were dragged over to near the entrance of the cemetery to store tidily before disposal.

Cheers After the task we ditched the beach and went to the pub instead. We were joined by Sue ( chair of the cemetery) and John ( Paul's husband)

What a great evening 🤩

Next week, because of bank holiday , the task is on Wednesday at Worthing Leisure Centre garden. Hope to see you there 👍

Julia xx

*Sunshine at last ! *

It was a wonderful evening for a visit to Turning Tides Victoria Road hostel. Some walked, some ran and one arrived as a complete surprise to us all ! It was so good to see Beth back in Worthing for her first GoodGym in 2 years ! Lets hope we see some more of this little pocket rocket in the borough again soon.

Also surprising us with her presence was our very own social secretary Tamsin - so good to see you and thank you for your continuing hard work in and outside of tasks :)

It was also good to see Sue Anne and Craig back again tonight after a few weeks break -the warm sunshine definitely brought out the crowds this evening.

We were tasked with putting together garden furniture together with a tidy up of the garden and breaking down alot of cardboard ready for recycling. Sarahand Anne jumped on the chance for some self assembly of the bench and were also joined by John in a supervisory role! Paul Tamsin and Craig assembled the table ( despite lack of tools! )

RoxyGillybean, Daisy and Sue worked tirelessly all evening sorting the wilderness around the borders and rediscovering the raised bed that had been completely obscured by tall weed like bushes.

Meanwhile Belinda and Beth were busily breaking down boxes and sorting between recycling and general rubbish - they somehow found space in bins !

Great job done everybody :) See you next week.

Julia xx

*Social walk *

Thanks to a weather front bringing air from the Arctic it certainly didn't feel like a late April evening ! Although lovely and light and luckily not windy, there was certainly a chill in the air!

We all convened and went straight out armed with litter pickers and bags. We headed west along the prom picking up stray litter as we went before arriving on the beach at the far end of the lido. With the tide out this meant that we could get under the structure of the Lido and then the pier to do a scavenger hunt for rubbish that had been dropped together with other debris that accumulates along or shore line.

With the team partnering up then mixing up it provided a perfect opportunity to have a lovely relaxed walk and enjoy social chit chat and banter with each other.

Sue had just returned from her travels and it was lovely to catch up on her news together with her Jurrassic walk and Kilimanjaro climb that are both fast approaching! She is under the watchful eye of coach Barbara !

It was also good to hear all about Ricky running and work progress together with his race plans. ! Good luck Ricky!

Sarah pulled a practical joke on her partner Ryan when she found a discarded parking ticket and planted it on Ryan's car before photographing it and presenting it to him. The phrase 'Gotcha' springs to mind when I saw his face ! Luckily Sarah fessed up just as Ryan headed off to do battle with the traffic warden! Craig was much kinder presenting Sarah with a rose instead !

After the beach we headed through the gardens to our finish line. With some light hearted competitiveness in the group led by Daisy and after careful consideration of the weight and size of each bag, I announced that John and Ryan had won Daisy's competition!

On our return to the start point we played a new game of GG inspired hoopla with a cone and the litter picker rings which had held the bags in place. Thanks Paulfor helping to pick up the rings whilst I was photographing ! Ryan was victorious in this 👏👏👏 . Very well deserved especially after the shock of the phony parking ticket just a few minutes earlier !

Lovely evening ! Thanks everyone 😀

Sunday rewind

It had been a very successful Brighton half marathon for 5 of our group. Sue W, Sue A, Ricky ( who got a PB) Paul and John all did brilliantly battling a vicious easterly wind in the the last 5 k of the course. Massive kudos to Belinda and John too who were the intrepid supporters and who stood in the freezing weather watching and photographing everyone before getting soaked in the torrential wind and rain getting home afterwards.

Monday fun day

Luckily the weather had calmed down by Monday evening for our visit to Heene Community Centre gardens where we have a bit of a winter project on the go!

It was a surprise to welcome Nick back to GG. Nick had achieved some fantastic results the day before with 2 gold medals and 1 bronze in his regional ballroom and latin dance competition. With the attraction of spending quality time with his wonderful wife together with the idea of a social and food afterwards, it meant he turned up with a garden fork and spade in hand, ready for some digging!

John and Paul also fell in with the digging crew whilst Belinda arrived for some more photographic duties whilst her poorly thumb gets better.

It was all going smoothly with some great progress until Nick got obsessed with a stubborn root that he refused to leave and 'cover it over' as i requested ( quite a number of times,) Even Paulagreed with me but no, clearly I'm not th boss at home or on a GG task!

Craig to the rescue but then I realised he was just as stubborn as the flippin' tree root ( and Nick!) Whilst the focus was on this root, Paul, John and myself were just getting on with the original brief of the task. We did a great job digging, weeding and carefully replanting any valuable plants that we could rescue whilst the other two continued with their own agenda !

Job done

Thank goodness Craig and Nick finally got that root out! Belinda recorded everything and then we went to the pub for drinks and 50% off food ! Happy days !

See you all next week for ( hopefully ) the final chapter of the Heene rooms

Have a great week !

Julia xx

Report written by John and photos taken by Belinda Thank you both

On Monday seven of us returned to Heene Road Community rooms where we had previously done some weeding and clearing ready for early spring planting. Our return visit has been somewhat delayed due to the recent poor weather - the impact of which greeted us on arrival! The wet conditions and reasonably mild temperatures has triggered the regrowth of the weeds, and seems to have strengthened their resolve to continue the defend of their territory against tidiness and neat planting!

Fitting in the fitness

Meeting at the task meant there was to be fitness opportunities during the task. It seems that John was the only one to acknowledge that a proper gardening session is a good all over workout. Clearly they didn’t all dig it!

Julia sent off a trio of runners; with Paul mistiming his arrival slightly (just a minute later Paul, just a minute….) his brief hesitation when asked “was he running” was declared an affirmative and he set off with Sarah and Craig on a timed run.

Belinda and Daisy opted for the walking route, and Julia and John got stuck in to the clearance task.

Little weeds

Luckily the work previously done wasn’t a completely wasted effort. Much of the weed covering was rooted only just below the surface so loosening the soil with a fork enabled them to be lifted. This also meant we could avoid disturbing the bulbs which are beginning to sprout telling us that despite how the weather seems currently spring is really on the way.

I don’t give a fork

On return from their first run, the three speedsters were keen to get stuck in. Paul had brought along his own fork, and he was soon working like a human rotivator. Craig wrested the fork from a very reluctant John, who clearly was desperate to carry on digging, but graciously gave in. John must have already done a lot of the hard work. How else could it look as though Craig’s efforts were more efficient and successful. Sarah went in search of some accessories!

The walkers return

This heralded another quick change of role. The runners were sent off again with a simple instruction, nay, demand, from Julia: “Be quicker!” They were! Daisy got stuck into some weed gathering and bagging while Belinda focussed on ensuring our efforts were suitably recorded.

By the time it came to the final (“you must be even quicker!”) run Paul had clearly realised that a ‘fork holding workout’ was a ‘sufficient workout’ and he threw himself fully into single handedly clearing a huge patch of weeds.

It’s mostly fun

Although intriguingly there is, to date, no Strava evidence to support this, Craig and Sarah declared their final run as the fastest of the evening. Clear up and group photo time followed. John is still adamant that he was NOT throwing dirt and weeds at Daisy. She just happened to be in the “discard” area. It was no more than unfortunate timing. Honestly!

Absent friends

As always when we are working in a reasonably closed space there was plenty of time for chat. We discussed Sarah’s intriguing, but clearly successful rotational system, and asked after ‘absent’ GoodGymers wellbeing. Particular care and concern was expressed for Ryan who according to Sarah had had a ‘slight’ slip at the parkrun finish on Saturday when he may have ended up a ‘little’ dirty.

Just like Arnie

“We’ll be back” - here next week hoping to get the last of the area cleared ready for planting. And there will be beer (or other beverage of course) with a GoodGym Get Together following the task.

Great report and photos- thank you Belinda and John :)