It was a lovely sunny afternoon and after a phone call with Mr S to check that he was back form Friday Prayers, I set off to his house ready to garden.

He had all the tools needed and his garage was very orderly, so it wasn't long before I was pushing the mower and and down the lawn. While I worked he chatted away about his family who are no longer local. I suggested he might want to go and sit down while I worked but he wanted to be on hand to keep me company. Eventually he disappeared, but then reappeared with a bowl of strawberries... and they were a delicious.

Next I started in the front garden where his hedge was looking rather unruly. In his more sprightly days he told me that his garden had been his pride and joy, and he was sad to see the hedge looking so shabby. So with secateurs and shears at the ready, I started to get the hedge back in shape. It wasn't perfect but Mr S seemed thrilled with my efforts. So much so that he wanted to pay me - which I of course declined and tried to explain to him about GoodGym being a volunteering organisation.

I said, "We do good to get fit." and he smiled and replied that he thought that I was very strong to get so much done and that the fitness element was really paying off, and that I had really done him a good deed too.

He was such a gentle man, it was a pleasure to make a difference to his garden and to see the smile on his face.

Weeks of drought are not ideal for recently planted trees and Konni from the Luton Orchards Project has been looking after lots of newly planted fruit trees at various spots around town.

So, when we got a call from Konni about helping to water 70 trees in Wigmore Park's Covid memorial orchard we jumped at the chance to add this worthy task to our schedule.

We started in the town centre and welcomed Esther to her first ever session and had a warm-up. Then we began the 4.5km up-hill to the airport and then to on to the park where Konni waited for us with hose-pipe and watering cans at the ready.

On arrival we set up a watering relay system to make sure every tree got two cans of water, marking the trees with pegs to mark them as done.

We marked a couple of milestones at this session, it was our 200th group run, and Gill brought cupcakes to celebrate recently achieving 500 good deeds! We had a quick celebration with the cupcakes and some Luton apple juice provided by Konni before we bid her farewell and ran back off into the sunset!

3 Luton Goodgymers stepped up to help Foodcycle this week. Covering food collection and kitchen team between them, the efforts all helped towards feeding 45 people a 3 course meal. Carrot soup and bread starter, followed by Egg and pea curry 🍛 and cake and fruit salad for dessert. Everyone seemed to enjoy the meal and the team enjoyed the task. Great effort all, well done 👏

Two goodgymers and volunteers from SPBC formed a superb team to make the event a cheerful one for all participants especially the birthday boy performing his favourite song “Ob-la-di”.

This week we ran 2.5 km to the 61 Football Club where they're busy doing off-season maintenance to the club house. Our task for the evening was a deep clean of the muddy changing rooms after a winter of soggy players bringing the pitch inside with them!

We gave the floors a really thorough scrub and mop-up to get the mud out and gave the walls a good wipe down too, leaving it all looking much smarter by the time we called it a day and enjoyed some biscuits and a cup of strong orange squash to fuel our return run back into town.

This weeks Foodcycle was as busy as ever as we cooked for, looked after and cleaned up after over 40 guests. In the Kitchen we welcome Lucie to her first Goodgym session and she help the rest of the team creating a fantastic 3 course meal out of a very limited donation of surplus food from our local supermarkets. Samantha was her usual happy self, keeping on top of the washing and drying up, whilst being generally helpful and providing a clean a tidy place for us all to work. Yazed helped the hosting team, who were under staffed so the work that he supported was even more important than usual. The task was not only lucky enough to have a first timer but we were also able to celebrate with Gill who clocked up her 500th, yes, I said 500th Goodgym task. What an amazing achievement for one of our Goodgym Luton superstars. Gill you're a legend, keep doing what you do. Excellent effort by all, we'll done