Making a splash ( not )

For our second task of the week I was joined by Gillybean, Belinda,Ryan and John

Without Sarah there tonight 😪 we all survived painting the forest green fence without the usual splattering 🤣

It was a beautiful sunny September evening and we had a great chat !

Birthday Celebrations 🍺 for John

It was a great turn out for Johns special day.

We spent 45 minutes doing a very productive litter pick of the surrounding areas. The Birthday boy himself, John teamed up with Mrs R, Belinda and together with Daisy Roxy and Paula they headed off in the direction of Windsor Lawns. For Daisy this was an irresistible opportunity for a competition to see who could fill their bag more 🤣 which they all good naturedly joined in with. For Mr and Mrs R it must surely have also been a trip down memory lane where they used to live.

Heading out in the opposite direction were our intrepid explorers Sarah and Ryan who were fresh from a weekend walking from Hove to Hastings. Joining them today was also Gillybean and Sue. We all feel for Gill who is missing her beloved running with a heel spur injury 😪.

Finally Barbara myself and Sueconcentrated on the area around Splashpoint where there was loads of rubbish caught in bushes 🥺

After completion we all headed up to the pub to raise a glass and knife and fork to John where we were joined by parents to be Natacha and Steve together with Ricky and Nick too. Happy Days 😍

Little by little

This was our third visit back to this leisure centre garden. It's a project that we have kind of adopted as we found it sad to see it uncared for. Gillybean has always led the way on this task and we are always happy to get behind her ideas to give a helping hand.

Tonights task was to get the rectangular area of ground prepared and planted with grass seed.

Belinda armed with John's pads got straight down on her knees to weed. Paula was also part of the weeding team and the two of them also chatted about their up and coming BIG Birthdays and how they were feeling about the milestone together with how they may be celebrating them.

John himself, got some great pruning of shrubs and brambles done at the far end of the garden where its very overgrown whilst chatting to Daisy who was busy raking reading for sowing.

Roxy in her signature style got into some energetic digging followed by scattering the grass seed and watering.

Gillybean was part of the weeding, raking and sowing team with me pitching in wherever needed including lots of watering, plus the all important, taking of photos.

We will wait to see how the grass seed takes and return to dig some borders so that we can plant lots of bulbs which will make it look wonderful next Spring

Next week it's John's Birthday so we will be combining a litter pick / walk / run with some celebrating 🍾 😀

*Paul's special day *

What a great turn out it was for Paul epic 200th good deed. What an amazing journey its been since Paul came along with Tamsin in October 2017. We have absolutely LOVED every minute of our time with you at tasks and also at socials when you bring your husband John along too ( not forgetting Pepper and Milo too! )

Tonight was no exception with Paul, John and the 2 dogs helping to celebrate the amazing milestone. However, before the celebrations came the task!

What a group turn out

It was great to see Lucy and Duncan who came over especially for this evening from Portsmouth. Thank you both - much appreciated. Lets also not forget a guest appearance from our social secretary Tamsin who already has plans afoot for our annual Christmas get together - this year we are going to try for a December date and at exclusive location !

Our task tonight was to continue the remodelling of the garden at the leisure centre. Barbara had made a suggestion that the raised beds would be removed to be replaced with grass and Duncan also suggested wild flower beds. This has since been approved and will mean it will be much easier to maintain together with making it a prettier area for sitting out in.

The first job was to dismantle the beds and level the soil over the ground. Roxy was especially pleased as she was able to reclaim the wood from the beds for using in her allotment. We cant wait to see the photos of what she creates with her stash!

Thank you all for all the hard work tonight from all the team - Another special mention must go to Gillybean for her leadership and consistency in looking after this garden over the weeks, months (and years! )

Ryan and Sarah get the prize for the cutest photo of the evening :) Plus kudos to Ryan for not giving up his rake when we did the speedy swap in changeovers.

Anne and John get the prize for the best caption photo ( we still are unsure quite what was going on here but we are sure it was, somehow, a sign of Ann's appreciation of John! )

Sue and Lucy had a great action shot demonstrating 'lunges whilst you work' !

After the task came the awards ceremony with Paul loving his bespoke GG engraved tankard and putting it into immediate use! We all shared drinks and a picnic with everyone's contributions. Yum!! What a happy and buzzing night it was for GG Worthing! We were definitely feeling the love :)

Hope to see lots of you next week - in the meantime have a great last weekend of August.

Julia xx

*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

*The new Andy *

11 of us arrived at Kamelia Kids to give a helping hand to this centre that provides care for all children including ones that need a bit of extra tlc.

Tonight we met Nick who has had to fill very big shoes as Andy has now retired. Nick has been there 3 months and was intrigued to learn who we are and what we do. He had been told a little about us so was already prepared with various jobs.

The main one was painting the outside toddler play kitchen which the majority of the group got stuck into.

Gillybean got straight into some pruning and tidying of shrubs and tomato plants. Ricky started on the brushing a play area then transferred to painting.

Meanwhile Belinda and Paula began a massive sweep and tidy of the playground- this was a huge task as there was so much sand ! As quickly as we swept it seemed to re appear again !

*Meanwhile in the kitchen.......

Everyone was trying to avoid getting paint splattered by Sarah 🤣 John in particular was on high alert ⚠️ The competition was on to see which group could finish their end first Whilst John and Sarah were playing their games 🤣 Paul, Anne, Sue , Ryan all worked really quickly to get the whole kitchen done including all the fiddly bits ! It was a wonderful before and after transformation and very satisfying for all involved. 👌

Great job team 👏

See you next week for the cemetery pruning and social - more info to follow.

Have a great week !

Julia x