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...

It's ages since we had over 20 red t-shirts out on the streets of Bristol but GoodGymmers far and wide were drawn in by the lure of good weather, one of our favourite tasks and multiple offers of cake.

There seemed to be a lot of Sarahs and Richards at roll call but the backmarkers, Jenny and Vaguely Northern Darren had a pretty good idea how many runners were in front of them as Richard B navigated a route avoiding the increasing number of closed bridges currently on offer in Bristol.

We picked up some of the GoodGymmers who'd been stranded by the lack of walkable/ runnable bridges, very Pied Piper but without the music and demands for payment.

Ever enthusiastic, Ruth was awaiting our arrival at the school and had multiple tools available for multiple tasks.

Trowels were grabbed by the Front Planter team to weed out all the plants EXCEPT THE GOOSEBERRY BUSHES, breaking in the fibreboard-like compost as well as some more traditional bagged stuff - Richard G showing some amazing Double Trowel techniques whilst Sarah, Katie and Tim crushed compost, Richard B, Sara and Lexi kept a check on who was Niamh (the owner of the key card) to refill the very elegant watering cans to dampen the soil. It was brilliant to see Charlene pop in whilst she was walking her very energetic dog, holding on with her good arm and now able to start reducing the time she has to wear a brace on the poorly arm.

Meanwhile, inside the Niamh-gate, Art and Paul were playing with sand and brushes in the double height Wendy house to ensure the area was as tidy as can be.

Into the bike sheds with super-sweeps Clo, Alice (being very brave with her blended thumb), Abby and Jenny getting ready for the start of term, whilst the specialist apple-picker collective made for the orchard to harvest the abundance of apples - Russ was predictably quick up the ladder and as far into the tree as possible whilst Maria, Matt, Laura, Fii, Janka and Vaguely Northern Darren tried to coax apples out of the tree and catch them before they could hit the ground and spoil. Shree, possibly her last GoodGym group run before her year in Oz, seemed to be in a lot of photos whilst wandering around with a tub of chocolates - the joy of everything not melting as soon as you step outside!

After weightlifting the crates of apples back to the school building and being able to take some to carry home, Ruth produced a fantastic walnut and chocolate cake to reward the hard work of the team and we tried to take a fantastic panorama photo with a bit of success.

We escaped through the gate in the car park for the run back to Queen Square where Jenny refused to let Shree "pop in to the loo" before stretches as we had the very important business of presenting her 171 not out GoodGym t-shirt to take on her travels.

Even more chatting back at Club Haus in workout where we enjoyed drinks, chocolates and Jenny's vegan rocky road cake - topping off a pretty perfect evening.