If you go down to the woods today, you’re in for a big surprise, if you go down to the woods today you’ll never guess what you will find…

(biiiig breath)….

Cans and wrappers and bags and jars.

Trellis and paint and some wheels from a car.

A garden hose on a reel.

A blue flip flop starting to peel.

And a gnome with (g)no face.

Plus 2 hoovers very out of place.

A watering can far from home.

And a (gravity defying) cube full of foam.

A mattress, and a dog bed.

As well as a helmet, but no head….(Phewff!!).

And some odd bits of garden furniture suspiciously close to a fence.

With a fancy blue thermos that we could have flogged for a few pence.

With new bingo sheets to track our finds,

We did our good-gym thing of being kind.

Ticking off prize finds as we went,

And shouting BINGO with content.

We collected bags in great number that we piled high by the fence.

They couldn’t fit in the council van, our efforts were immense.

And as the hour flew by,

The sun shone in the sky.

Which was a bit of a shame,

As we'd found an umbrella to protect us from the rain.

Anwen found some pants

A pink, lacy home to some ants.

And while some found the Dragon

They kept it to a socially distanced fashion.

We also welcomed a new friend;

Matt, please don't let this be the end!

Huge efforts from everyone this evening! We have all become experts at litter picking and absolutely blitz the woods this evening; absolute epitome of team work!

We’ve been to Magdalen woods before, and it sure won't be long before it's knocking back on our door!

Hopefully our noticeable impact, the glorious sunset and our newly laminated bingo cards made it all feel very worthwhile!!

Peggy, we love you. Come back soon. Of course Stu, you are very welcome too!

Matthew ; Thank you for taking a chance on the weather and getting stuck in on your very first good gym task! It was a pleasure to have you, and we hope to see you again (come rain or shine) soon!

What's the key to a great GoodGym gardening session? Well...tracking down the key to the garden is a great start! After a small delay to access we hit the ground running (metaphorically) in the garden of the Highfield ward in the unexpected evening sunshine. Splitting into 2 teams in separate garden sections, ably headed up by Ben and Sarah, we tooled up and spread out to spruce up the space.

The Highfield ward is the young person's ward at Warneford Hospital, so at times we had a small audience of teenagers inside (plenty of waves and friendly giggles). Mindful of the ticking clock we got to work - brambles were cut back and dug up, we uprooted nettles, weeded border shrubbery, scrapped moss off the patio area, and pruned for Britain. Wheelbarrow load after wheel barrow load of weeds were hauled onto a pile by the exit gates - key shenanigans meant that we couldn't get out to the compost pile until the end of the session and elicited plenty of jokes about not being let out until the garden was perfectly manicured! Everyone was fully in the zone so time flew by. I think we could happily have worked away for longer if daylight and our hungry-for-dinner tummies had allowed. At 7:30pm on the dot the ward staff came to release us and the task of wheeling load after load of weeds and bramble cuttings over to the compost pile round the back of the ward commenced. I lost count of the number of wheelbarrow loads, but certainly at least 13 (unlucky for some?) plus several plastic boxes worth were hauled out.

No rain, no hail - what a win!

I'm sure we'll be back at the Highfield again before too long - there's one section of the garden we haven't started yet, and plenty more we could do in the areas we have begun to work on.

Welcome Kat - good to meet you! Congratulations on the shiny new 50 Good Deeds black Tshirt Stu - very chic!