Feeling in need of the restorative power of nature! I arranged some time off work to relax & clear my brain - and with recently recovering from Covid, i have not been outside nearly enough!

I spent a lovely few hours re-clearing some of the overgrown paths and enjoying the sunshine coming through the trees.

After a couple of hours of work I enjoyed catching up with the regular volunteers and the new Friday leader, Leigh, as we had lunch outside. We were all very happy to have such great weather after the massive storm yesterday had led to the Thursday session being cancelled. Today was beautiful!

It was tiring afterwards as I have not quite got my usual stamina back yet, but the good, wholesome kind of tired where you have been out in fresh air and worked hard.

A great lead into the weekend and hopefully a good start to getting back into more energetic activities.

Happy. 🥰

After my parkrun, I decided to join a community mission at St Mary’s Church, helping to plant bulbs around the area. Sam, the gardener in charge, explained how deep we needed to plant each size of bulb. I really enjoyed being part of the community group, and at the end, we were treated to some very rewarding refreshments, including two delicious homemade cakes and some savory snacks.

14 of us gathered at Glass Mill ready to plant the bulbs at Florence Green. Paul kindly lead the warm up and brought the group up to Florence Green whilst I tried to walk as fast as I could so not to delay getting stuck into the bulb planting.

Subo had organised the bulbs by tree and we were each assigned a pack of bulbs to plant with a variety of tools. Some more effective than others... A variety of bulbs were planted including daffodils and aliums.

We then moved onto our next task for the evening which was removing the stakes from the hedges that we planted a long while back, only if we thought they were strong enough to survive on their own without support!

We were soon done and dusted with that task as well and it was time to head back to Glass Mill.

Welcome Joshua to your first GoodGym session - hope you had a wonderful evening and we'll see you again soon!

We might be visiting Florence Green again before the year is out as they're expecting another delivery of bulbs from the council.

Next week we are heading to The Albany to tackle a list of jobs in the garden and of course the usual litter pick of the perimeter.

First time at Hornfair, which is not in my local area but happen to be house-sitting nearby which gives me the opportunity to visit other parkruns.

It is so wonderful to see kids of all ages getting out and enjoying the fun of running, walking, and volunteering. The parkrun even had some foam hands for marshals to give some power-up hi-fives!

I don’t think it was a official fancy-dress parkrun but there were still lots of excellent outfits including a very fast and very enthusiastic skeleton, and a superhero who was Iron Man on top and Batman on bottom! Why choose one when you can be both! And why are grown up clothes so boring - i would like to be a dinosaur please!

After all of our young runners had completed two laps of the course, my marshalling duties were fulfilled but my heart remained happy long after I had left. ❤️