Our first Wednesday group run of 2020 brought some new faces to GoodGym – Mary, Stephanie, Lucy, Gemma. welcome to you all - and also Peggy the dog!

We jogged over to Marston, with a short paws outside the Up In Arms Pub to do some star jumps, but not fur long as we had to get to OXSRAD. Once there we met Mark, who is having a bit of a ruff time as he is injured at the moment. A big thank you also to Mark’s daughter, Emily Lygo who works at OXSRAD and didn’t mind us collaring her to hound her with questions!

We split into groups and cleaned the place from top to tail! We cleaned equip-mutt in the gym, crash mats in the sensory room, tables and chairs in the reception area, scrubbed down some wheelchairs and cleaned the kitchen. A glimpse into the aerial silks room had us grinning from ear terrier.

On the way back we went daschund through the streets of Oxford, doing some fartlek between lamp posts (but not getting too com-pet-itive) and some squat jumps (with Gloria as the winner).

Passers by might have thought we were barking mad! We also had a large enough group to all speak to somebody we have never spoken to before, which meant the run flew by and we barely noticed that it was raining cats and dogs.

That’s enough of this shaggy dog *story, I hope you all *(labr)adored this session as much as I did!

-- Footnote, Peggy noticed her owner Stu has now got 16 Good Deeds!! which means he can join up to TASKFORCE (as can any runner who has done 10 or more good deeds!). She hounded him in the pub to promise to do this ASAP!! <3 <3

Welcome to Grace and Leo Jay who joined us for the first time.. you are very welcome!

So 13 of us went to Pack more Christmas boxes for Project Shoebox!

the focus this time was for boys, teenage girls and men. We knew what we were doing this time so some speeeedy boxing up occured :).

Trev forced us to wear jingle bells, santa hats, beards and Chrismas jumpers.. which I personally feel added a lot to the run up to headington. We made a sleigh like sound as we passed by the houses of people trying to forget that Boris Johnson has stollen all of their Christmas cheer.. not yet we say.. NOT YET!! and as the full moon peaks as i type this there is an optimism that maybe, just maybe, this Christmas will be a GoodGym one!.. yes, yes it will!

Thanks to Rachael who organised a fab Christmas meal for us at the Oxford Blue!

We ate all manor of rich food, shrimps in a fancy butter, pots of turkey, home baked Pizza and Baklava.. I'll let people comment if they have more food info!! We had crackers, Trev tangled up the yoyo and got told off for threatening to use the Water pistol. Stu made an overdue and welcome return and we talked about dating and politics, amongst other things! There were about 2 cracker jokes which I wont repeat here.. (There is still time, the whatsapp group joke book is now...OPEN!).

Angus reminded people that we needed to vote tomorrow as we paid the bill.. and we all laughed because like no-one would forget that.. right?!..