It was wonderful to be back out on another weekly Goodgym task with the lovely Annaliza & Maurice. Tonight we headed down to Tiny Forest Crewe for a bit of weeding!! The Tiny Forest is a great (national) project which aims to bring communities together while looking after our environment.

Before getting stuck into our task though, we set off for a brisk walk. I'd anticipated it to be about a mile long or so, but we got lost!!! So, we ended up doing almost 2 miles and arriving to the task 15 minutes late – oops! We were surprised by how easy it was to get lost in an area that we thought we knew reasonably well!! Luckily though, Ian, our task owner from the Tiny Forest had forgotten all about us coming this evening (I’d called him to tell him we were running late) until getting my message, so we all rocked up at the same time!! I was glad he’d forgotten as it eased my guilt for being 15 minutes late!

Our main job this evening was tackling the thistles – and boy, were there plenty to go at!!! You could barely see the trees for all the weeds, so we knew we were going to have our work cut out!! Annaliza and I doubled up our gloves but the thistles were so vicious that the spikes still went straight through them and rendered them useless!!

With loppers, choppers and rakes in hand, we set to work on getting rid of as many weeds as we could…. However, we soon realised that it wasn’t going to be done in an hour, or two, or three, lol! But, we did what we could and we gathered 2 large refuse bags full and more besides. I felt sorry for Maurice as he’d arrived to the task in shorts – hopefully you didn’t get too prickled to death Maurice! And thank you as always for coming so prepared with tools etc and for your willingness to take all the garden waste to dispose of. It was a productive night and I know there will be plenty of opportunities for us to come back and carry on with this task in the coming weeks!

Well done folks! Another successful task complete!

Have a great week. Lots of love, Nicola xxx

It was another beautiful night for a Goodgym task – which was a good thing as we were outside, once again supporting The Wildlife Trust with their community garden project. It was great to be back there tonight with Andy, who gave us another warm welcome.

As always, we had two groups this evening, our running group and our walking group. Karen & Nigel enjoyed a walk together, while Annaliza, Maurice & Nicola went for a run. We overlapped the two groups for the start of the walk/run and took the opportunity to visit the Knife Angel that is currently displayed in Crewe. It was quite a sight.

As Nigel & Karen headed off for their walk, the rest us set off for our run. We did a circular route, heading out from the Knife Angel on the Memorial Square, down towards the cemetery and then back up through the town. It was 2.4km in total and got the old heart rate up! We had a nice chat as we went and managed to come back alive (which isn’t always a given when Maurice is with us… he has a love of running in front of cars!!!).

Back at base, we set to work with Andy in cutting down all the bamboo. It was a continuation of the work we did there last time but this time, we managed to finish cutting it all down and cleared the area (not including the roots….. eeek!). It was quite fascinating cutting down the bamboo, especially looking at the younger branches, which were super bendy and would have made perfect fishing poles! It was quite a physical task, but it was rewarding to see the end results. We also assembled and filled 3 bird boxes which we then attached to the windows – we hope that the service users will enjoy watching the birds feed from them when they’re at the centre.

After quite a physical task, we all felt we’d earned a drink, so headed off to Hops for a bit of refreshment. We chatted about lots of things… parkrun escapades and Goodgym socials being the main topic of conversation (of course, lol!).

Well done everyone. Another fantastic night’s work completed! A real team effort with fantastic results!

You’re all incredible!

See you all soon. Lots of love, Nicola xxx

Rain, rain and more rain!!! Wow did the heavens open today!! We weren’t expecting a dry night at tonight’s session after the day we’d had, but that’s exactly what we got (of course we did – this is Goodgym afterall!).

Tonight, we were leafleting for fantastic charity, Motherwell, so it was amazing to have 7 members join us tonight, including a lovely first time Goodgymer Britt. It was great to welcome you Britt. We really hope you enjoyed your first experience of a Goodgym task and will come back and join us again soon.

We started the evening with two groups – a walking option and a running option. Karen, Nigel, Britt and Adele opted for the walk this evening and took in some of the local woodland. They really enjoyed the walk but after all the rain, it was a tad wet and slippery under foot. I didn’t hear any complaining though and in fact Karen emphasized how beautiful if was (despite the muddied up trainers!). Annaliza, Maurice and I had a run and headed down to the lovely Queen’s Park where we did and ‘almost but not quite’ lap of the Crewe Parkrun route. We had the park to ourselves (apart from the squirrels and geese of course!). I think the rain must have put people off coming out. We had a good run and then headed back to Motherwell.

When we got back to base, we distributed the leaflets between us and we put Karen in charge of the map (she loves a map but don’t give her a pen, whatever you do! ;)). It was fantastic to have 7 members all pounding the streets tonight, it made a HUGE difference in the number of leaflets we were able to get through letterboxes (teamwork makes the dream work….. it actually really does, lol!). There was plenty of puddle dodging tonight but luckily no rain dodging (Nigel carried his golf umbrella round all night for no reason :( but sods law would have it that it would have rained if he hadn't taken it!)

As our evening began to draw to an end, we realised that we’d somehow become separated from the lovely Annaliza and Britt. The last few streets we delivered to were like rabbit warrens, it was hardly any wonder we got separated. So sorry Annaliza and Britt. I hope you’ll forgive us.

A lovely night as always! Thanks for being my wonderful Goodgym buddies this evening and getting another fantastic job done!

And one final shout out to Adele for tonight’s pun – total lifesaver!!!! Hope you don't mind the little bit I added at the end, I couldn't resist!!

Love you all to bits!

Have a great week and see you all soon. Nicola xxx

It’s been beautiful weather today and the perfect day for starting a new task with a wonderful new task owner - Cheshire Wildlife Trust. Thank you for inviting us along to get stuck into this fantastic new project.

Tonight, we started our evening with two groups for exercise. Karen, Nigel and Maurice took the run, while Adele & Annaliza took the walk. It was a lovely night for either option and a great opportunity for a catchup and natter. Apparently, it was also a good night for getting lost….. mentioning no names… (Nigel) who somehow managed to branch off from the rest of the group…. it’s not at all like Nigel to get split off from the rest of the group……. 😉

Back at the task, we met up with Andy who is leading this project and he gave us the brief on what we were doing tonight. It was a good old physical task with lots of elbow grease required. The idea behind this task is to give this space a big overhaul and make it an area that can be enjoyed by users of the Acorn Centre to do some planting and observe the visiting wildlife.

The evening was spent cutting down bamboo. The bamboo is currently cutting out the light from the lounges in the day centre and so needed to come down. It was a physically demanding task but very rewarding to see the impact once the bamboo was gone. Another task was digging out the roots…. again, a physically demanding task but very rewarding. There’s still lots of work to be done and we look forward to going back again and continuing with the project!

A lovely evening spent with lovely friends doing a great job for the community. Fun, fitness, friendship and the feel-good factor! Win Win!!

Well done everyone! Another job well done! You’re all awesome! Special thanks to Karen for the fabulous photography skills tonight (sorry about the secateurs! ).

Have a great week and see you all soon!

Lots of love Nicola xxx