It was back to Hannah More Primary School this evening to have a tidy up of the playground, field, front of school, chalk boards and veg patches during the "Spring" half-term in predictable rain showers.

We welcomed James to his very first GoodGym task and he joined the walkers whilst Richard B led the runners over the bridge and (not very) far, far away.

Ruth was there to greet us with litter picking, chalk board cleaning, veg patch weeding (is this one a weed?) and sand sweeping all happening with GoodGymmers scampering all over the school's outside space.

As ever, we were on the hunt for treasure and before long top picks were a buried dinosaur (top archaeological excavating or litter picking, whichever it was) and a plastic cake which was added to the general sense of celebrations for Melanie's 1000th good deed - all surpassed by the amazing 1000 badge hand made by the lovely Richard G who'd had the foresight to waterproof it to save us all being covered in glitter. His graphic design skills are, as ever, second to none.

Vaguely Northern Darren set about capturing photographic evidence of all that was going on...

It turned out most of the chalk boards were undercover - surely being exposed to the rain would make them self-cleaning, if utterly impractical for ever drawing on - Valè and James made short work (they were having to kneel down to get the bottom of the low boards) of turning them very black indeed, whilst nearby Caroline was sweeping with the small broom which she much preferred to the bigger one on offer.

Runners turned litter-pickers Richard B, Ed, Gareth and Ryan resisted the urge to play on the outdoor equipment whilst scouring the grounds - how do they do that? Multiple bags were collected ready for the skip later and added to by Team Weeds - starting with the quite obvious couch grass (although that did prove not so simple by the onions) before progressing onto flatter weeds, Jason, Frances, Jo and James left the beds looking much tidier than when we'd started, and most of the actual vegetable plants still in place.Richard G moved on to the edges of the planters and expertly replanted some cornflowers to a raised bed instead of clinging on to the planter edge for dear life.

We were soon wrapping up as the rain re-started and moved on to the newly painted and furnished staff room (courtesy of some corporate volunteers) where we had the luxury of wash-hand basins before Ruth delighted us with coffee and walnut cake, more chat and a celebratory photo to mark Melanie's 1000th.

Running and walking back, and finding no speed dating at Workout, we were able to enjoys pots of tea (other drinks are available) and more celebratory cookies and our traditional party rings with Paul and Danica who'd called in to say hello. James was well and truly inducted into the random conversations of Bristol GoodGym.

See you next time?

It was only drizzle - hooray! The morning had brought flooding to Bristol with the highest Spring tide of the year, saturated ground (talk of aquifer levels) and more rain - all the roads had reopened so Lexi could get into Bristol after all. It was great to meet Joel, too, dragged along by Valè as something lovely to do on every Tuesday from now on.

Runners (always at a social, chatty pace and stopping at ALL the traffic lights) and walkers set off in the reducing light with talk of the lighter evenings and soon arrived at Hannah More Primary School to meet Ruth and Lyra the dog and set about tidying up the edges of the school field and digging deep grass roots out of one of the raised beds.

There's a fabulous new mural on their Big Wall , no idea why they didn't get GoodGym to do it...

Tools were renamed (alligator/crocodiles and Wolverine hands being favoured) and chatter varied from memories of previous visits, climbing the apple trees and hula-hoop trees - a Hannah More phenomenon not seen elsewhere that plastic hula-hoops grow on their trees.

The art of hula-hooping was demonstrated and tried out as well as street skillz of throwing a hula hoop so it spins away and then back. Hours of fun in the 70s and 80s before computer games.

And this week's cultural/music education piece is Wap Bam Boogie. I'll be testing you next week.

Ruth had very kindly made flapjack so we finished on time, cleaned up and returned the tools to the staff room and continued reminiscing (this was the venue of our summer social last year on my birthday, which also had torrential rain) whilst eating the fantastically gooey treat and heading back. Another job well done!

Much merriment was had with take-home sparklers being expertly assisted by Joanna on her very first GoodGym task (with a glowing report from Ruth) whilst Darren pointed out Jupiter and with the help of the visiting astronomer and Melanie spotted litter glistening in the firelight - pretty perfect!

Four goodgymers met.
To pick apples, you bet.

Up a ladder they climb.
For those apples sublime.

On the floor there were more.
They were quite poor.

Some hoops we found.
They were quite round.

At the end we had cake.
Then a spring roll we did make.

Nothing more to rhyme.
Until next time…

For the third Tuesday in a row we were told it wasn't going to rain and for the third time in a row it did, bit barely dampened the spirits of the GoodGym Bristol team as they set about tidying the adventure playground, allotment and field of litter and discarded clothing plus sweeping the bike sheds of leaves to make lovely mulch. Oh, and one dead rat.

It was fab to be joined by Effy for her first group run - we don't always have THAT much cake afterwards but any time you want to bring goodies to Workout for after the run they'll be very gratefully received!

Ruth (as well as making amazing aranchini rice balls) had made sure we could stay for Eats afterwards in the staff room as it was too soggy to be outside and Jenny brought sweetie pie Coby (Cobie?) along to say hi, though at three months old he was more interested in eating.

Ruth then introduced us to the "quick" game of Empire where everyone individually tells The Administrator the name of a famous (to us) person then becomes that person by name. The Administrator reads out a list of all the names, including a couple of red herrings, twice. Play then passes around the circle with each individual asking someone else if they are so and also. if they guess right, that person joins their empire and play keeps moving around the circle until either everyone is in One Empire or everyone's forgotten the names on the list or, it turns put, you have two Marie Curies. About 90 minutes later.

Thanks for the cards, great to try the Athletic Brewing Company alcohol-free beer and have lots of slightly damp mad

It's a little while since we've been back to see Ruth who now voluntarily looks after Lots of Fun Things at Hannah More Primary School, having retired from being paid to do it.

The play areas were as interesting as ever and the children had managed to move HUGE quantities of sand outside of the HUGE sandpit/mud kitchen areas in the playground for us to sweep and sift, trying in turn to relocate the woodchip to where we think it belonged under other climbing frames and equipment.

"Bike" rack areas were emptied and swept with the inevitable playground chase on tricycles, weeds were removed (and plants kept!), whiteboards were returned to whiteness and litter was bagged.

It was a hive of activity with red t-shirts and black making the outdoor space a more fun place to be, by having lots of fun. It was a great way to welcome Jen and Nina to our happy GoodGym team and Ruth rewarded us with an amazing cake she'd baked before our end-of-task photo in the Tiki Bar (the kids may not call it that...