50, waste to leave, m'luvver!

Tonight's litter picking task was supplied by Bristol Waste and indeed it appeared that the whole of Bristol's waste had been deposited behind just two bushes on a street in Redfield.

This task was truly a load of rubbish - the litter equivalent of sweeping everything in the entire house under the carpet.

With such a gargantuan task it was lucky that we had 24 of the very best Bristol Goodgym members on the job - including both battle-scarred veterans and some of our courageous new recruits. Dividing into teams of 4 or 5 we concentrated most of our forces on the bushes but were able to spare some of the remainder to tackle the rest of the street and a small children's playground.

Team Playground - Masters of Diplomacy

Team playground employed some excellent diplomacy, quickly winning the support of the families who were taking advantage of the longer evenings to relax amongst the swings and slides and receving enthusiastic offers of help from the children.

Team Street - Bringing the Muscle to the Party

Not content with collecting myriad bags full of litter the street teams succeeded in retrieving an entire discarded TV and bringing it to the specified point for collection.

Team Bush - making good on a TARDIS of Withering Sights

But through all of this the bushes never ceased in offering up their endless array of unusual and unwanted items.

Lindsey discovered a bucket half filled with cans, Alice discovered a toad in a rubbish-strewn gap that must surely have been the inspiration for the Star Wars waste compactor scene, Liam found the old womans shoe (though it is unclear what had happened to all her children so maybe she did know what to do after all), and George having come all the way from his home turf of Lambeth found Barney the purple dinosaur. Sadly, it appears that Barney's rock and roll lifestyle had finally caught up with him as he was found under the bush with a wide variety of cans and appeared to have let his once ripped physique ... get ripped.

All in all, in 30 minutes we collected over 25 bags of rubbish for collection and totally transformed the street for the residents. Fantastic work everyone!

After a pacey run back to base, there was just enough time for the early arrivals to do a fartlek circuit of Queen Square before everyone got down to some stretching. We congratulated all our members who ran last weekend - and particularly Charlie for running her first marathon in the hardest possible way, off road and up hill.

Congratulations Sarah - 50 Good Deeds!!

And last but not least, huge congratulations to Sarah for reaching 50 good deeds. Sarah is a true GG Bristol regular - cheer her here, or maybe buy her an Oreo or two. Thanks also to Richard for bringing one of the last two packets of pink wafers in all existence to help celebrate.