Our second group task and a litter pick back on the cards. Unfortunately, we had some last minute moves this week. But January is the month of the litter pick in Cardiff, with our traditional litter pick relay taking place every year where we pick everyday of the month.

Our route tonight took us to the back of the train station,.... Fancy. And then, over the industrial area and to the embankment again.

On the way we had an explosion of coffee from Emma "the gripper" Wilkins and found several strange items, including a bike seat. And it just got stranger as we hit the embankment, and we found lettuce, cabbage, and for the fancy.. Romaine lettuce. As we questioned why they were there, and in such large quantities, we also spotted the parsnips from last week! This is a strange dinner.

There are Swans around the area, although tonight they were all hidden and huddled under the bridge.

But Michael stated "Swans don’t eat parsnips, nor do rats" the title of his new book available soon on download ONLY. 🤣 And please don't write in.... Yes rats can eat parsnips.

As we discussed the the cold, and why wouldn't we? The use of the word nip came up... What a strange word it is.

LEARNING CORNER

Nippy When it comes to the British synonyms for cold, ‘nippy’ is a very popular term.

First Known Use

Verb (1)

15th century, to catch hold of and squeeze tightly between two surfaces, edges, or points : pinch, bite "the dog nipped his ankle"

Noun (1)

1549, something that nips: such as

a archaic : a sharp biting comment b: a sharp stinging cold c: a biting or pungent flavor : tang

But let's end on an additional learning note.... Ducks prefer romaine lettuce..

Nathan and Catherine met up before the Group run to warm up with a litter pick around a city centre church. they caught up on their running plans for the year and the impending mad rush to try and get a 2025 Man vs Horse place. After a bag of rubbish was collected, Catherine headed off to join the main group and Nathan headed home to catch the tail end of the kids bath and bed time.

We welcome in December and Winter (depending on whether you're meteorological or astronomical), it was certainly a cold evening, but a nice jog around the City will soon warm us up. 3 met for the active travel from our start location to the Church, with another 2 people meeting us there and then joining us for a walk back.

The task tonight was helping the church to spruce up the grounds, removing the fallen leaves of Autumn, before they become a slushy mushy mess, we also had enough time to go outside and tidy up around the railings, making it much safer for the local residents when walking past. One such resident even came over to thank us for our hard work.

Thank you

We had all the tools tonight for cleaning up leaves, including a fancy scooping device which made light work of the piles of leaves that the sweepers created. Finally on the task was a little bit of weed killing, but this was not going to be done with chemicals - no ruining our land, instead it was done with a nice simple burning tool.

We were soon done and on our merry way back to the glassworks for a quick social and natter, join us next week for our last activity of the year, it's a new charity too. We are also going for food afterwards so if you are coming then please sign up to that.

A celebration of an evening, we say farewell to November group runs, we finish our Christmas Cards for Care Homes, look forward to our games evening after the task and say a festive

Congratulations on your 50th Deed

to our Dylan, welcome to the Black t-shirt club.

The run wasn't as cold this evening as it has been recently, a nice change for us. The task was back in the great office space of Autism Spectrum Connections Cymru. The last selection of cards were put out, there were some charity cards still to fill out and a few plain for those crafty ones in the group. Michael put out quite an array of craft supplies, coloured metallic pens, markers, glue, glitter (edible) and lots and lots of seasonal stamps.

We welcomed back to the group for their second task Rachel, thanks for coming back.

The countdown began, along with the Christmas music - which tonight was a selection from the 80s...including the very festive 'Grandma got run over by a reindeer'. We also welcomed back an original member with their newest addition, Lucy and baby Eliza (our future goodgymer).

As the time passed and we came to the end of the task, we counted the cards and had managed 50 tonight, it was as if the 50th celebrations were meant to be. Our total card count for all of the tasks is an impressive 200, plenty to get mailing to a selection of care homes.

Now we celebrate for the evening with a selection of games and a nice social, thanks all for the festive crafting.

Join us next week, we only have 2 group activities in December so lets make the most of them.

As Diana Ross said,

We talk about love, love, love

Tonight was the final session for the paper-chain project by Christmas for CAMHS, and we saw a good 10 volunteers turn up to help out. And, we welcomed our newest member Rachel.

CROESO

We hit the streets for a jog to warm us up, we made our way to the SMART bridge in Cardiff where Michael took the group up the cycle part of the bridge on a wonderful spiral run up and then down the other side. We popped down the Bay, spotting Christmas trees as we went, before heading back to the task at the office for Autism Spectrum Connections Cymru, who had wonderfully allowed us to use their space. Thanks to Neda for staying in the space waiting for us all to arrive, this week we had some new wrapping paper to use for the project with a lovely Christmas feel to it, Michael played some tunes on the new goodgym Cardiff speaker and we all got very crafty.

Talk turned to next week's task, the last one for us writing cards for care homes, which will be followed by a games night in the Glassworks (our start location)....Fun Fun FUN
Thanks to all members that have come out for these tasks, they are a little bit different to the usual but will help to make a young person feel connected to the outside world and to not feel forgotten.

DIOLCH

Another concert Tuesday in Cardiff as this week Taylor Swift and 70 000 fans take over the City, after the Pink concert last week we made the decision to move the start location back to Sport Wales for this task. It made our active travel much easier with a great direct run and walk.

Tonight's task was a great new one for the goodgym crew to get their teeth into, we were helping out at Llandaff Cathedral and to the background music of bell ringing. The water from the cathedral runs through guttering and out under a bridge, out job was to get in the trench and start clearing it out so that it can be transformed into a bog garden.

Learning ALERT

A bog garden can be created by adapting an existing soggy area, or from scratch, either at the edge of a pond, or as a standalone feature. Permanently damp, it creates an area where moisture-loving plants thrive. These plants are different to those suited to the standing water of a pond, so will attract a host of different wildlife.

A bog garden may be a better option than a pond for families with young children. Like a pond, it should attract frogs, toads and even grass snakes. Dragonflies and damselflies will perch on the taller grasses, and bees and butterflies will flit around the flowers.

wildlifetrust - make a bog garden

The soil in the trench was already springy and the area is surrounded by trees, the graveyard has a range of wildlife including some lovely foxes. This project will help to increase biodiversity even more and we can't wait to see the end results. We had lots of plants to remove, some could simply be pulled up with our hands (gloved of course) whilst others needed to be dug out with trowels. There was some overhanging branches that needed removing and lots of brambles trying to root themselves, all of the green waste could be placed in the grounds in-between trees to put their nutrients back into the soil.

Circle of Life

We bagged up all rubbish that had made its way into the trench, dating things as we went - can you remember ring pull drink cans? All fallen branches and wood was moved to the woodland areas too and the rather LARGE stones were placed on the side of the trench to be used in the next phase of the project. It was a good workout tonight, and everyone of us could see the work that we had just done.