It was all yellow in the (Cold-)playground as we all went barking mad. Well we got into the swing of things at least…

A bright but chilly Monday evening saw the Goodgym gang gathered at Wholefoods for a fun-filled task in Marble Hill Park. Mark and Jenna were away so the run was led by Olivia of House Ealing, and while we missed Mark’s warm-up enormously (ahem!) nobody was complaining too much that Olivia’s version was a little less strenuous 😉

Olivia, by the way, is GoodGym’s new guru of participation, driving up membership and involvement across the whole of the GG network – so if you want to share your ideas look her up and get in touch!

Off we went from Wholefoods, taking a familiar route up the hill and weaving through the streets back to Hill Rise and down onto Petersham Road, past “our” flower bed (coming up nicely now!) and then coming face to face with the nemesis that is Nightingale Lane. Without breaking stride we bent heads and powered up the hill, cheering each other on and high-fiving at the top. Good to get that one out of the way nice and early…

Then it was a short run back down and across the bridge, down through East Twickenham and to our destination, Marble Hill Park (whose beautiful grand house, we learned from the entry-sign, was home to George II’s mistress) and its playground of swings and zipwires – a trip down memory lane for those of us who grew up nearby 😊

We were welcomed by task owner Claire and divided into two groups. One group was briefed to turn over and rake the wood chips under the swings - these guys definitely did give a fork (or rake); and the other group grabbed pots of yellow paint (kindly donated by Dulux) and gave the wooden frames a sunny spruce-up - they definitely didn't give their work the brush off (pretty sure this pun came up last time...).

We set to work and were soon making great progress, no doubt spurred on by the promise of a go on the biggest rope swing as rewards for our efforts. It was great to be out doing good in the mellow evening light, and as usual the team did an excellent job on both parts of the task. A couple of Tarzan and Jane impressions on the rope swing later we rounded it off with a photo of a classic GoodGym group pose – with some bikes and trikes that might have been a little on the small side. And then we wound our way back to Richmond for some hill sprint relays and Sally squats!

A big welcome to Millie who recently moved up from Bournemouth (where she was already a GoodGymer) and joined the Richmond ranks, and huge thanks to Olivia for filling in for Mark so brilliantly 😊

Today our run took us to hope housing. we thought we would be moving lots of turf but because it hadn't been delivered yet we ended up spreading the grit we moved last week instead. We had Sam join us for his first group run, i met him when organising a task with YMCA to do a flyer drop. Great to have you with us. Also great to have Dan back with us after some time off! We managed to get the whole job done and get back in time to go to the pub quiz up the road!!! Fingers crossed we get the job done at the quiz too!!! Thank you Dan for the title!!!

This evening took us to Hope Housing where shifting soil turned into lifting grit! 10 of us met up at Flirt and were soon jogging along the pedestrian zone as our usual warm up area had been taken over by a soon to be....upside down house....yep I have no idea either. So many questions and zero answers!!

We welcomed back Tara which obviously means we didn't scare her off last time! Wooohoo!

It was also grit to have Catherine and Steffi back running with us!

We took the scenic route to Hope Housing and although it included a very long hill...we did get distracted by the view of a huge harvest moon. What a beautiful view! And then we get to the top of the hill, turn around and see the sun setting and a stunning display of colour! How lucky are we to live in such a stunning place!

On arrival Mark let us know what we were going to be doing....and it wasn't going to be easy...a team on the roof made up of Daryl, Steffi and Lee, Mark on the roof of the van, Caprice on a few planks level with the floor of the van and the rest of us lifting bags of grit and passing them to Caprice, who then passed them on to Mark who then threw them onto the roof for the others to organise and stack ready to be spread....

Again, amazing teamwork...Catherine and Nicole soon had the great idea of using a wheelbarrow, Millie looked like she had done this many times before...even had the dexterity of a clock repair person to undo the knots tying the pallets of grit together!!

After a total blitz of 35minutes...10 of us shifted

7 TONS OF GRIT

That is amazing!! And Mark was saying that thanks to us doing the hard work the charity had saved £1,500....that is a huge amount! No wonder they want us back next week to move some turf onto the roof.....it's going to be a messy job....but there will be a quiz and beers at the pub after as reward!!

Thank you Caprice for back marking and Lee for our photos!

Well done everyone!! See you next week for a spooky group run!!