it was warm but we managed to get two ends of a path to join up and look more like a path again - success!

Fantastic sunshine greeted 11 GoodGymmers who were relieved it had stopped raining. It was great to meet Alice, visiting us from London Town and Josh joining for his very first GoodGym task having been attracted to the red t-shirt gang at a local event. Rasa and Matty also joined us for a second time and our cemetery gardens specialist Ieva was back, too. Great to see you all!

Brunswick Cemetery was looking glorious in the evening sun and the recent heat and rain have helped everything grow fast - especially the weeds! reclaiming the paths from the greenery was the main plan, catching as many of the weeds before they scatter their seeds and create next year's weeding.

Lots of chatter and plant identification (guesswork), the park was a-buzz with GoodGymmers and insects getting their fix. Bag after bag of green waste was piled up for the Council to collect along with armfuls of bigger/spikier weeds.

It was soon time for the random pointing end-of-task photo as we left the park even more beautiful than weed (see what I did there?) found it.

Back to Workout to sit by the water with a pot of tea and taste-testing the chocolate protein cakes, or chocolate not-do-much protein cakes - great evening everyone.

Happy Star Wars day, May the 4th be with you.

A quiet day on the planet Naboo (or Brunswick cemetery) as the Friends of Brunswick were having a well deserved bank holiday off.

With no one to ask my usual ‘is this is a weed or not?’ I decided to stick to the safe path and make the path safe (or at least less hidden).

Using the force I managed to fill more garden waste sacks than I thought so a quick break to the local supermarket to buy some more. Someone must have used a Jedi mind tricks on me as an ice cream also managed to jump into the shopping basket.

Back to Brunswick to enjoy my treat under the disappointed eyes of the birds wondering where their free worms were (none today).

2 more sacks filled and the path no longer looks like it leads to the dark side.

Enough of these Star Wars puns

Live long and prosper 🖖 (sorry couldn’t resist)

Another beautiful evening for the DEMOCRACY that is Bristol GoodGym to get together and inflict some good somewhere in the city. With the fabulous progress in de-sycamoring Brunswick cemetery last week, there was a golden (sunlight) opportunity to get a lot more of this time-sensitive task completed. Although every time you turn around another sapling-to-be has emerged from it's underground seed. Much chatter ensued, etymology of words and comparisons with other languages was a hot topic, inspired by the unexpected finding of a really-quite-posh baguette amongst the undergrowth. We left it, in case it was useful, and all headed off to Ciao Amici for GoodGym Eats, it being the first Tuesday of the month - great food with quick service - just what we needed!

A cold start to a beautifully sunny and soon warm Bank Holiday - who’s’ve thought?

A small but select team of GoodGymmers helped local Jo to de-bramble more patches of the cemetery, leaving the plants we want and pulling out the bramble, buttercup and bindweed that has no place here, thank you very much!

Daylight! Sunshine! Smiles all round for our first light evening Group Run/Walk of 2026 after what’s felt like the longest, darkest, wettest winter ever.

Happy GoodGymmers set off to Brunswick Cemetery for Operation Sycamore No More to collect as many sycamore seedings as possible from the thousands that are sprouting. One sycamore tree is enough, thank you!

Left, right and centre, GoodGymmers were crouching, squatting, kneeling and, in Richard B's case, elegantly lounging to gather their bouquets of sycamores with a bit of stickybud to surreptitiously attach to a fellow GGer. Ieva, returning for her second good deed, was definitely the sinner of the biggest bouquet, mainly because the more experienced GGers wither made a pile or speedily bagged their offerings. There may be a prize giving ceremony next week.

Phill and Emma gave some of the tomb-covering ivy a trim whilst Vaguely Northern Darren ferried the trimmings yo the assigned green waste collection point.

The sign that everyone needed a good stretch was a group of GGers standing tall and happening to be chatting, naming no names Caroline, Richard G, Jason, Ed, and Dushyant!

A lovely stroll/run back as the sun set was followed by more chat at Workout whilst the football was on with a few if us continuing to practise our Japanese. More again next week?