6 runners, 4 walkers and a cyclist (not the set up to a joke, an actual fact!) made their way to Sparks to help get them ready for their first Birthday on Saturday.

Helen joined us for her first group run after deciding to see what the difference is between morning sessions at Windmill Hill, to the evening crowd in Queen Square!

We all converged in the alley behind Sparks and Lucy showed us to the toaster that we duly emptied, shifted 2 metres, them filled again!

NikFrancesMarianne and I, Vaguely Northern Darren, made light work of table and chair organising, before we all went upstairs and shifted some not very light stage sets. My first time using a trolley thing, also needing some extra wheels to shift it, taking around 6 people and a significant amount of time manoeuvering , before we found that 4 people (if one of the 4 is Valè, could actually carry it much quicker! The service lift was an experience, that if you weren't there, you wouldn't understand 'man'.

After realising the door somewhere wasn't shut properly, Jordan braved the 3rd floor on his own, and survived to close the door and get us moving again. Everyone worked hard tonight, including Frances and Richard working tirelessly at keeping the doors open.

Back downstairs at 7:45 for a quick group photo before Frances and Marianne spontaneously joined the GoodGym Eats crew, while Caroline stuck to her guns of never doing anything spontaneously in her life and ran home.

Thanks to Frances for the pun, honourable mention to Richard for 'Up down Junk'. [edit from Melanie (in Finland) - we definitely need to use that one!]

It was almost not raining, and then only drizzly mizzly on the 15 GoodGymmers who artived in Queen Square for a lovely Group Run or Walk.

Not only were Gaia and Genevieve back for a second deed, Will and Seb were the first to arrive for their very first visits to GoodGym - we hope to see you both again very soon, in your matching outfits!

The runners outnumbered the walkers this week and 9 GoodGymmers were sandwiched between Run Leaders Vaguely Northern Darren and Richard B as they set off to St Werburgh's Community Centre and the four walkers set about hunting litter on a walk across the city centre.

The runners navigated the flooded subway via the handily-placed Bricks of Dryness (BoDs) and set about tidying the play area in St Werburghs. We definitely didn't touch the plant that had the 'Do not touch' sign on it, but we did clear all of the soil, remove the weeds, and tidy toys up, as requested.

Meanwhile, litter-picking and tidying were happening on the walk up to and around Brunswick Square and, once that was tidier, through parts of the Cemetery where Richard G, Jason and Frances were introduced to the wonders of Renée and Renata by Melanie. The 80s were odd.

Blue sky and sunshine for the 12 GoodGymmers who braved the hill up the Totterdown, making the mostbof the Banana (Benene, Binini,Bonono, Bununu, just for Frances) Bridge before it, too, closes for a couple of years to be fixed.

A local group is looking after some green spaces and making them more inviting, including this one (not the actual orchard but still technically an irchard as it has five fruit-like trees) that needed some woodchip moving from a big pile to start creating a winding path, hindweed to pull and fruit trees (what with it being an orchard) to water.

Riya, on her first good deed, mastered shovelling, raking and the all-important GoodGym proficiency test for wheelbarrowing after revealing she'd never tried any of then before - great work!

The runners, led by Vaguely Northern Darren and backmarked by Caroline, who was backmarked by 50-good-deeder Caroline, had already gotten to grips with the woodchip path-laying by the time the walkers arrived so Richard and Frances joined Melanie in trying to pull up the bindweed without pullout out, nor falling down, the bankside. Somehow Ed joined the path gang although he'd walked and defected to the running group for the return leg (where Marianne's 50th good deed cake was waiting - delicious!).

Darren took some lovely photos in the sunshine and if you can see through the glorious glare of the sun, Tom, Gareth and Freya were all hard at work casting long shadows.

Soon we'd weeded and pathed and were on our way back down the hill for tea, cake (and Ed's burger), cider and a lot of nonsense chattering about skiing chickens and Mr T(-pot). All pretty standard stuff.

Same tine next week?

Seven runners and four walkers made their way to Riverside Park in the evening sunshine to do what we do best...rid the parks of rubbish with style, panache and a little je ne sais quoi! (one of our new GoodGymers is French and I remembered that I am fluent at French! :-) So bienvenue to Genevieve and benvenuta to Brent GoodGymer Gaia (who's Italian, which is not one of the many languages I speak so had to Google that one.) It felt as if spring had finally arrived this evening and while we worked hard at the task, it was great to hear the chat and laughter while doing good, and seeing passers by smile and acknowledge the work we were doing for our community.