Well Raleigh partnership launch task dawned without any of the Raleigh goodies, but the sun shone and we did manage to get the discount code from Amy at Windsor and Maidenhead GoodGym, so we're chalking it up as a success anyway!

The task:
Makespace had asked us to do a thorough tidy of their canal-side garden and car park. We mowed (without breaking the lawnmower!), scraped, weeded, tidied, litter picked, chopped brambles, pruned weeping willow, and generally gave it a really thorough spruce-up.

Many hands make light work!

It's that time of year when we start watching the sky at evening tasks wondering if we'll get everything done before the light fails. Fortunately, despite the gloomy skies we still got away with it this week, and I think we'll manage one more week without having to worry too much about darkness. Time to start locating those headtorches and high vis tops that you've had tucked away since March!

This week was all about weeding, pruning, and litter picking at Makespace in Jericho.

We first tackled this task back in July, and over the couple of months since then the weeds have sprung up and the litter has reappeared. With one eye on the darkening skies we got to work promptly, sending the first arrivals over to tackle the biggest jobs of willow pruning, wall weeding, and ivy clearing. Other teams tackled litterpicking around the car park and weeding front and back areas, as well as a bit of leaf raking for good measure.

Finds of the evening:
* Virtually a whole outfit discarded in various corners of the car park (including a snazzy mask). We really need to start keeping the discarded clothing from litter picks and dressing some scarecrows.
* A frog hiding under the ivy we removed from the building on canal-side
* Pink gin and lemonade

Conversation topics:
* Schools v pubs
* The different approaches of NZ v GB
* How they made us Doubt Everything podcast
* Mask designs
* Different workplace approaches
* Skipping - the perfect COVID-safe exercise? (You can blame Aoife if I bring my skipping rope next week.)
* Kittens

I know it's surprising with all that chatter, but work-and-talk is our USP, so by the time an hour was up we'd cleared the stone wall of weeds, and also much of the overgrown area beside it, got the path to the garden beautifully manicured, picked up 2 bags of litter, pulled down a HUGE pile of ivy and brambles that was creeping up the building and blocking the light, pruned the weeping willow, and scraped and weeded around the garden and carpark.

Impressive as ever team!

Congratulations to Vicky on your 50th GoodGym Good Deed!

Welcome to Amy, Martha, and Zelga. Lovely to meet you!

Makespace is an affordable working and making space offering subsidised rents for social enterprises, charities and workers co-operatives. They have a lovely site on the canal in North Jericho.

During lockdown Makespace has, of course, been closed, and in that time the outdoor spaces have accumulated a lot of weeds and got quite overgrown - it sounded like the ideal job for the GoodGym elves!

On Wednesday evening 10 GoodGymers converged from all directions, gardening gloves at the ready, to tackle the jungle. We weeded, and scraped, and mowed the grass (until the lawnmower decided it was all too much like hard work and it needed a rest). We cleared litter from the car-park, gave a rose bush some breathing space, chopped back brambles, moved a HUGE bag of manure over to fill a raised bed, raked up leaves, and generally got a bit sweaty and muddy, but amazingly no nettle stings this week. (Is it even a GoodGym summer task if there are no nettle stings involved?) An little over an hour later we surveyed our progress with a fair amount of pride - it was looking a good deal smarter than when we started.

Then off we all trotted, fanning out to different areas of Oxford, with the hope that the time for group running will soon be upon us.

A warm welcome to Conor and Kate who did their first GoodGym good deed with us last night.

With 10k to run we wasted no time at all this evening. Welcoming Laura from the Canal and River Trust and Ruth, then whizzing through the run briefing, we set off west into the evening sun (yes! sun! we somehow escaped today's April showers!).

Despite it being a double task night we were all headed to the Oxford Canal, so we ran together chatting as we went. Mixing up the surfaces we ran through the University Parks then down onto the canal towpath, stopping at Makespace to deliver them 6 Goodgymers.....

From Bethan: We arrived at Makespace to be greeted by Emma with water and biscuits. After a quick snack and an impromptu photo shoot Emma provided us with a variety of tools, including a cargo bike, skillfully controlled by Tim. We headed along the canal to where the council had felled some tree branches which were hazardous. They were already chipped, so we split up and merrily filled our containers: a bucket, a wheelbarrow, 2 coffee sacks, and the cargo bike. We were quite a sight on our return journey to Makespace! After transporting as much woodchip as we could across the canal bridge we unloaded the chippings ready to be used in the garden, said our goodbyes and headed off to link up with the rest of the Goodgym team.

As a bonus we spotted some judge-y ducks, some glorious waterside houses, and a delightful French bulldog pup!

Meanwhile, Team Plog carried on up the canal for a few hundred metres to meet Tim, the City Council Waterways Co-ordinator. Distributing litterpickers and a combination of litter and recycling bags, Tim sent us off back down the towpath, litter-picking as we went. We all love a good plog (although, we'd obviously rather people didn't drop litter in the first place), and the competition for oddest object got off to a great start with the find of a plastic comb. We picked litter, we admired the bridge murals, we scooted around Aristotle Lane Recreation Ground to pick up the litter left from Easter Egg hunts and bank holiday picnics. We couldn't resist a quick go on the monkey bars at Aristotle Lane, although it turns out there's a distinct advantage to being tall enough to keep your feet on the ground (!), then kept on plogging on until we reached Walton Well Road.

Regrouping at Hythe Bridge Park, we left our beautifully sorted litter and recycling bags ready for collection, waved goodbye to task owners Laura and Tim, and enjoyed a scenic run back to base through central Oxford, trying to take in as many different streets as we could for Trevor since he has a goal to run every street in Oxford before Race to the Stones in July.

What a lovely evening!

Next week is May Day, and we'll be off to Meadow Lane Nature Park for the task.

Good luck to Stu who is running the London Marathon on Sunday. Bring your medal to show us next week!