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John and I are keen to get back into our Leader tops albeit in a limited capacity and in line with current Government guidelines which is why, we are tentatively offering a couple of 1to1 sessions.

John is available Monday and Wednesday evenings at around 17:30 and I’m available Tuesday and Friday mornings at around 08:00 (sorry for the early start but it’s easier to adhere to social distancing when the park is quieter).

John will lead a Run Plus session and I’m happy to lead any group at all from Buggy Walk, to Walk plus, to C25K to slower end of Run Plus.  So if you’re struggling to get out solo, have a route you’d like to try but not confident about it or feeling fed up and would like some company then please get in touch!

You can text me on 07788 628755 or email helyn@sefitness.com if you’re interested.

For our safety and yours this offer only applies if you feel in perfectly good health and are not considered high risk.   There will be no access to SE Fitness HQ, no touching, no cash and no car keys!  It will be our joint responsibility to observe the 2m social distancing while out and about and if you do decide to get in touch it’s because you’ve accepted the level of risk involved.

We will see how this works for the next week or two and, depending on any further lifting of restrictions on 1 June, may look to extend to other Leaders where they are willing.

It’s not often we can offer 1to1 coaching so, if you consider it safe for you, get in touch and we will see what we can do!

Congratulations to Jon High who is the first to complete a line on the SE Fitness Bingo Challenge!  Jon’s got a Selfie in his SE Top, completed a Yoga class at home and on Sunday ran the whole Fun Run Route.  Well done Jon and as you can see we’ve donated £50 to St Basils as promised.

£100 for the first person to claim FULL HOUSE!

31st May should have been the Fun Run and normally we’d be training every Saturday and raising money at the same time.  We can’t do that this year so perhaps, if you’ve enjoyed the Bingo, you’d consider dipping your hand in your pocket and making a donation direct to St Basils instead?  Even better could you pledge a few pounds for the second person to complete a FULL HOUSE and keep the competition going?  I appreciate these are difficult times financially so if you can’t afford it, please don’t worry about it just enjoy the bingo!

https://stbasils.org.uk/

If exercise is the way we nourish our bodies through a national crisis then Art, surely, is the way to nourish the soul.

TV, Film, Books, Music and with events streamed online even Art and Theatre buffs can get their fix so what’s your favourite?

Here at McConnell Towers we favour TV for it’s sociability.  Many a happy evening spent here shouting at BGT!  We’re currently watching ‘Race Across the World’ on catchup (thanks for the recommendation Michelle Stammers) and the debate about which of us would cope best trekking across South America with only £6, 2 pairs of pants and a paper map is insightful if not a little hurtful at times.  I always thought I was a fairly good map reader!

Big John finds his escapism through film whilst I’ve always been a reader and have rediscovered the joy of a good book in ‘lockdown’.  I’ve just finished ‘The Enchanted April’.  I’m  not recommending it, it certainly won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but in it is the most wonderful description of arriving at a holiday destination.  They arrive, at night, at an Italian castle they’ve rented for the month.  They’re rather nervous to begin with as their luggage has disappeared, it’s dark, it’s raining and they are left on the quayside.  They follow a light, climbing steps that lead through wet grass with invisible flowers everywhere that they can smell but not see.  Having left a damp, cold London in March the arrival in the castle was a wonderful moment.

The best holiday arrival we had was Kefalonia a few years ago.  Those of you who have been will know the island is stunningly beautiful with Pine clad hillsides that drop down to meet the sparkling blue of the Ionian Sea below.  We were lucky enough to arrive in the evening just as the sun set.  Our small hotel formed a horseshoe around a lush Medierranean garden where a grassy path lead to the headland and the sea beyond.  It was, literally, like landing in Heaven.

A far cry from those ‘no named accommodation’ deals of our early 20s.  Chugging round on some stinking coach, hangover threatening and hoping that the prison block you’d just ground to a halt in front of was not yours then later wishing it was when you found out you were staying in a concrete bunker in a deserted patch of no mans land absolutely miles from anywhere!

So many happy memories and all from just a page or two of book!

There might be limits on where we can go physically this weekend but there’s no limits at all as to where you can go in your head so make some time for Art as well as exercise SE Fitness!

In other news Leader Deb and her group of ‘Monday Walking Wonders’ have joined John and I in tackling the Camino de Santiago (virtually) also on behalf of St Basils.

Rather shocked to see how quickly they’ve managed to catch John and I (see here as McSEFitness) so I’ve sent him out on a long bike ride!

Deb says she looks forward to meeting up at the end for a glass of wine and tapas.  Now that would be very nice indeed wouldn’t it?

Register here for St Basils Step Up Challenge

So pleased to see that the SE Fitness Bingo has inspired you!  From Kuli and H on their ‘socially distanced run’ to John completing his Yoga class and Hazel ticking off the ‘Gardening or Housework’ box.

Top marks so far for Helen Hodgkiss who is putting her whole household through Couch to 5K!  She’s ticked off ‘Selfie in your SE Fitness Top’ in fine style by roping them all into one!

Remember we’ll donate £50 to St Basils for the first person to complete one line and £100 for the first person to achieve a ‘Full House’.

Here’s the Bingo Card to remind you what’s on it!

SE Fitness gardener Kate sharing a photo of “Lady Hamilton Rose” saying she does have one in her garden but it’s not out yet so this photo pinched from t’internet!

Here are Kate’s tips for this week:

Garden centres are open! 

Hooray, we can now go and buy plants! (I’m not getting into the whys and wherefores of what is essential, that’s for you to decide) All our local garden centres are now open, including Halls, Pacific, Wheat & Son (from Thurs), and Dobies in Shenstone, as well as Pets and Gardens in Wylde Green which has been open all along. Like all businesses, they will appreciate our support. Obviously please observe all social distancing requirements and maybe ring to check queues if poss before setting out.  Please also be patient as not all stock may be readily available as centres deal with supply issues and staff shortages.

Please be careful when planting out your precious purchases though as there may still be some cold nights to come. Best to ‘harden off’ first, ie bring in at night and gradually accustom plants to outdoors.

The Chelsea Chop

So named because this practice is carried out at around the time of the Chelsea Flower Show towards the end of May (I’m missing the shows!). It is a way of staggering the flowering times of some herbaceous perennials. Basically, you cut the stems of the clump to delay flowering. If you cut just half of the clump, this extends the flowering period by several weeks.  Plants that take the Chop well include: Phlox, Helenium, Echinacea, Achillea and Sedum.

Pests

Aphids such as greenfly are probably congregating on your roses, completely ignoring social distancing rules. Try and avoid spraying them. Even organic pesticides can harm beneficial insects such as ladybirds and bees. Given time, nature should sort things out and ladybirds and smaller birds will feast on the little blighters. In the meantime, you can squish them by hand, or a good squirt with a hose will often move them off your flowers. This method is known in horticultural terms as ‘cultural control’ and includes physical controls (eg barriers, netting) and ‘good husbandry’ ie ensuring healthy soil, nutrition and the right growing conditions; the idea being that a healthy strong plant, just like us, will better resist pests and diseases.

Happy gardening!

The Camino de Santiago is an ancient Pilgrimage route from southern France to the Cathedral de Santiago in Galicia in Northern Spain.  Walking it has been on my bucket list for a few years.

Whilst it will be a while before my boots trek across the Pyrennees and through the fertile Spanish plain I’m in luck because our charity for 2020 – St Basils – has setup a challenge to complete the route virtually by 12th June.  John and I are one third of the way through and I’m loving it!

https://stbasils.org.uk/events/step-up-challenge/

Check out the link for all the details and how to register.  When you register you get see an interactive map which displays the route together with a photo of and a description of the starting milestone.  You can join and complete the challenge solo or, even better, you can setup up a team with up to 5 people.   The total route is around 500 miles so get together with a few of your walking / running buddies and do it as a team event!   It costs £10 per person to register with proceeds going to St Basils.

It’s very simple to use just complete an activity and enter the distance.  You can enter steps, distance in miles or Km and you can enter walks, runs or bike rides so it doesn’t matter what you use to track your activity just enter the number.  John and I are both in the same team ‘McSEFitness’ and between us are making very good progress.  We are around one third of the way and in 10th place.  It’s great when you pass a key milestone on the route, such as Pamplona, you get a photo of the town and some information about it.  It’s not quite the same as actually being there but we can all dream can’t we!

St Basils is raising money to support their work helping vulnerable young people at risk of homelessness in the West Midlands.  With many of their normal fundraising activities on hold this ‘virtual’ challenge is an important event for them.  We’re enjoying our pilgrimage and hoped we might tempt some of you to take part too.

Let me know if you join so I can look out for your team on the Leaderboard.  If you discover the meaning of life while you’re at it please share that too!  Good Luck!

Here’s me on Cardiac Hill this morning ticking off my first activity on the SE Fitness Bingo sheet – Hill Session.

Later John went and and ran the Fun Run route coached by little John on his bike so he’s also one activity down.

Remember first person to complete any line we donate £50 to St Basils and first person with a full house we donate £100.

Just a note to say each square has to be a different activity eg you can’t take a selfie next to a landmark and claim two squares!

How’s your progress?

May is usually a busy time for SE Fitness with our Great Midlands Fun Run charity training and then the event itself at the end of the month.

As we can’t do that this year I wanted to set a May challenge and to raise some money for St Basils whose funds are down like so many charities during this crisis.  St Basils work with youth homelessness and were our nominated charity for 2020.

The answer is SE Fitness Bingo Charity Challenge!  

Please see three weeks of challenges on the above sheet for you to try and complete by the end of the month.  There’s a variety of stuff to have a go at so that anyone can join in.  Walkers and Runners welcome.  Happy for you to use your imagination and get creative in completing the sheet and look forward to seeing your photos or other ‘evidence’!

• For the first person to get in touch having completed one line (any line) SE Fitness will donate £50 to St Basils.
• The first person to get in touch having completed the whole sheet then SE Fitness will donate £100 to St Basils.

Very best of luck everyone!

Please make sure you adhere to Government Guidelines in completing the challenge.

I heard Boris say he wants us back to work today but not sure how this works for SE Fitness!  I will need a couple of days to study the detail but it didn’t sound like our walking and running groups should all head out for a mass meet up any time very soon.  Meanwhile let’s stick with the more cheerful prospect of the nature notes.

In the last week John and I have heard the woodpecker drumming in Gumslade woods.  There are two woodpeckers you are most likely to see, or much more likely hear, in our parks.  The first is the Great Spotted Woodpecker which is striking black and white with the males having a distinctive red patch on the back of the head.  Young birds have a red crown.  The bird will cling to tree trunks and branches and almost always on the side away from you!

The only time I can recall seeing one clearly was back in primary school.  A woodpecker flew into our garden and spent quite a while drumming on the trunk of the old willow tree at the back.  My Dad encouraged us to look him up in our little Collins bird book and read all about him.  This would, undoubtedly have made us late for school as we were always cutting it fine.  I don’t remember what the school said but I have a clear recollection of what the Great Spotted Woodpecker looks like!

The last woodpecker I saw in Sutton Park (saw rather than heard) was just as we were returning to Wyndley and it was feeding on the grassy slope near the Toby.  It was a Green Woodpecker which are green on the upperparts with a paler belly, bright yellow rump and red on his head.  They feed on the ground and eat ants so the short grass there would suit them well.

Woodpeckers breed in holes which they peck in dead wood which is why if you listen out when you’re out on your walk or run at the moment you are quite likely to hear them.  Good Luck!

https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/great-spotted-woodpecker/

https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/green-woodpecker/