Caroline

After a brain malfunction of mine and a late listing, it was a smaller group of us tonight. Sarah, Russ, Caroline and I met Julia and set to work with the usual selection of scythes, loppers and litter-pickers.

Sarah and Russ did some good old anger management (and grass management) with their scythes, Caroline took no prisoners with her lopping of the brambles and I filled a bag of litter which was mainly teeny tiny MAOAM wrappers (which required all of the hand-eye co-ordination I could muster).

While we worked, we watched the black clouds gather and the heavy rain rolling from Clifton over Bristol and towards us. Julia suggested avoiding it, so we packed up early and said bye just in time for the first heavy drops to start - phew!

See you all next week!

Tonight's gorgeously sunny task at Northern Slopes involved a lot of oggling the view of Bristol in the 20 degree sun and a bit of deeding on the side 😉

We continued to clear up Northern Slopes with a litter-pick (collecting two big bags of litter, including Jade's top finds of a broken up tea party and an onion!), lopping the brambles and scything some long grass areas and desire paths. We got lots of questions from passers by about what on earth those big axes we were holding were.

Chris made his comeback to GoodGym after a nail-biting 18 weeks on 299 Good Deeds and hit his 300th Good Deed!!!! 🤯 Massive well done Chris! Don't worry, we managed to save his fingers from being chopped off by his scythe just after this photo was taken.

Until next week!

6 GoodGymers and one GoodGymer in disguise (Caroline) met Julia from the Northern Slopes Initiative to continue our work of clearing the western area of the slopes. Martha, Jade, Jenny and Tim got to work giving the path a trim by lopping back all of the overgrown brambles. Meanwhile, Caroline, Richard and I had a go at scything all of the long grass to try and give children some more room to play. We had different levels of expertise and success - let's just say I am not going to be seen at any of the scything competitions anytime soon.

It was Tim's 100th Good Deed tonight!! We celebrated with a chat and wonderful coffee cake overlooking the beautiful view of Bristol. The centurion outfit will be awaiting a wear once we are able to again. Well done Tim!

It was a Bumper Birthday Night: massive happy birthday to Claire who celebrated with us (and a whole load of chocolate cake) tonight and to Kerry who had her birthday on Sunday. 🎂🎈🎉

It was great to have Stephen join us for the first time - welcome Stephen! And lovely to see Nick back from his 6 month stint in Canada, welcome back to the rain Nick! Alex and Richard also joined us an impressive 3 days after completing the Green Man Ultra - ouch! Great to see you both.

We had two tasks tonight to help with tonight. Maria led a group to Clifton to do leafleting for her orchestra who are doing a fundraising concert for the Bristol Drugs Project. The team did a great job of climbing Park Street, distributing the several hundred leaflets and working on their orchestra impressions/ invisible instrument playing.

Meanwhile, the rest of the gang headed to Faithspace where we were met by Suzanne and Marky. Marky set a small group to work with some gardening tasks in the green space opposite the community centre. The rest of the group helped Suzanne by distributing 200 leaflets about upcoming community centre events around the local area, prompting a game of Who Can Find A Letterbox - surprisingly challenging in Redcliffe!

We finished off with some biscuits, juice and a bit of core, then headed back to Queen Square with a stop for arm-circling-relays and finished off with tabata lunges and squats - you might feel them tomorrow.

I don't Claire what you say, there is no such thing as too much cake

After all of that, we headed in for birthday celebrations with not one, not two, but three types of cake. OOFT.

*Pun credit to Darren and obviously not me who it needed explaining to

20 Goodgymers ran walked or cycled to Beaufort Rd Allotments to help the community group. We had been warned of the possibility of ticks, so long sleeves and tucked in socks were the order of the day, luckily no-one succumbed! The Allotments had previously suffered from fly-tipping, so task one was to move a large pile of rubbish up to the road to be taken to the tip. 2 groups formed and metal, plastic and cardboard items were carried up to the fence where Emma and Russ passed them over to waiting Goodgym hands to take up and load into waiting vehicles. The Red Army smashed this in record time and then moved onto the next tasks; a larger group got stuck in moving panels and digging out a bank of earth, whilst the others displayed excellent log-rolling skills moving 2 large pieces to be used as seating for the fire pit. Then it was time for refreshments; lovely cake and sweets and (becoming traditional to this venue) a wee dram to warm our cockles on our run back to Bristol city centre for lunch.

Storm Dennis was a rumbling but still the hardy GoodGymers sent brambles a tumbling.

The Northern Slopes are 4 green areas in southern Bristol that help to provide natural space and habitat for insects, plant life and animals in an urban environment. Although the council does a bit of work in the area it is not enough to keep the area diverse, under control and in a pleasant and useful enough state so that it does not get eaten up by further building developments. That's where the Northern Slopes Initiative comes in. Julia, our ever welcoming host, is from the NSI and showed us what had to be done in the wind and rain. We were handed scives, loppers and even tree poppers and set to work cutting back brambles and giving the place a neater cute than a newly opened Turkish Barber styling the hair of a professional footballer before their wedding day using a protractor and freshly sharpened scissors. Alright, maybe not that neat, but we did do more cutting back than a dieter on a budget. Apart from some minor scratches, one being on Russ' conk, we all came out relatively unscathed and enjoyed biscuits and hot beverages kindly provided by Julia after an hour of grafting. GoodGym spirit shone through again as when the flask of hot water was empty, and some folks still had no brew, those who did shared theirs so all were warmed by not only tea but the kindness of others. And that is bramble there was to it. Wetter not forget to dry out and warm up again now.

On a beautifully sunny day eighteen Goodgym runners helped with a variety if tasks at The Haven: digging some veg beds for the next growing season and clearing some brambles.

Arriving from far and wide (some met at a cafe in the centre, some had been to a parkrun beforehand), we were just setting to work when a reporter from BBC radio Bristol turned up to interview us! Fame! we had a 7 minute segment to talk all about Goodgym Bristol. Have a listen here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p082qgmb Several runners fitted in a speed sunbathing session whilst our segment was cue-d up.

Getting back to work we split into two teams: diggers and bramblers. Team bramble rapidly chopped and hacked to clear their area, opening it up ready for some new fruit trees. Chris and David had a bramble off, judge for yourself who won from the photos. The diggers persevered through sticky mud to prep some growing beds. Bones were found, but Alison quickly identified then as likely from a goat.

A worm sacrifice was made to cluck the duck who thinks he's a chicken to ensure a good blessing for 2020s crop.

Happy running!