We were back at St Faith's this evening after a long break and the team seemed pleased to have us back!

Rodney, Eleanor and Judy tackled the litter around the site, finding a number of interesting items, including an abandoned handbag.

The rest of the squad battled the unforgiving bindweed, budlia and general weeds. Two massive Hippo bags were filled in just under an hour. Myself and Dave discovered a chonky wee toad whilst bagging up cuttings, leading to probably the highest pitched squeak I've ever made.

We enjoyed a lovely cup of tea and some biscuits courtesy of Jenny and John at the end of the visit. What a lovely evening out!

Tonight we had three jobs:

• clean the windows so that Arundel Court School's Easter art work can be displayed
• pull up bindweed to continue the everlasting battle (which I think we're winning!)
• collect and dispose of the litter that had been gifted to the bushes and flowerbeds around the church

We all split into 3 groups to complete the jobs and catch up with each others' news.

Once the jobs were done, we were rewarded for our efforts with tea/coffee, hot sausage rolls and a selection of chocolate biscuits, they know how to keep us coming back!!

Thanks to Tracey for the run report title which is a hymn title so seemed appropriate. However, we have to apologise to Rich who isn't a fan of that particular song!

A BIG welcome back to Maxine, lovely to see you and we send you all our best for your wedding... Although we're hoping to get a hen run / litter pick in before the big day. Watch the website / WhatsApp for details!

Tonight we battled the bindweed & other weeds, got to make lots of hoe jokes and picked up various cans and other litter from the flowerbed. Judy warmed herself up after her sea swim by doing the rounds with the bin bag.

Catherine did an excellent job of photos whilst tidying the bigger part of the gardens with Rosie, Jen, Maxine and Tracey.

We had a variety of wrapped biscuits on offer afterwards and some apples too (I can confirm these aren't an ideal pre run snack!)

Tonight 5 GoodGymers met up despite the dreary weather to litter pick, tackle some bind weed and pick up after the whirlwind that is Steve the gardener!

Katie hopped back and forth between raking up Steve's trimmings and finding litter all around, being our brilliant magpie for the evening! While the rest of us ripped bind weed from all the usual spots and filled two more large yellow bags with garden waste.

Jen & Nick had a great time tossing soil from one bag to the other, trying to even out the weight, Vicki & Nick showed excellent British politeness taking armfuls of garden waste off each other, and Vicki helped Jen with a "holy" pot for her sharp finds! No, in the end Katie took the unusable pot off her hands and found Jen something more suitable and less hole-y ;)

A tiny frog was spotted, giving Jen a fright but overall we had a relaxing evening wrapped up with the usual treats and interesting stories from the other helpers at st. Faiths. We learnt about the stone in the garden (discovered last time) and how Winchester university are their patrons, heard updates about Sue's sign language courses and Jen even bagged us some new good deeds from a passing elderly man in need of some gardening (the old man seemed smitten with Jen and even took her to go visit his garden already!)

Keep an eye out on the listings as we will most definitely be back in the near future!

Despite the blustery weather, 5 GoodGymers arrived at St Faiths to find Marcus all on his own thinking perhaps no one would show up! Fear not, a little (nor a lot) of rain would deter GoodGym from doing good!

In the back garden we discovered the paths covered in heaps of green cuttings left over from an excited Steve the gardener visit! Nick, Rosie & myself quickly shoveled, brushed and toss everything into two yellow bags for the tip - the second one ended up being too heavy due to large bushfuls dug up by Nick so we left that one to hopefully dry out and become light enough to carry!

Vicki & John headed straight around the curve armed with litter pickers and bin bags. Discovering an unfortunate amount of sharp materials; a kitchen knife, FIVE scissors, some needles and razor blades - not the safest of litter pickings, but we placed these all separately in a pot to be disposed of. Another unsafe (although in a different sense) item found was some lacy holey underwear - John didn't fancy modeling it for the photo! Aside from these, we found the usual cans, candy wrappers and various litter - enough to fill 5 bags worth!

Marcus was overjoyed with the transformation and said Steve would be equally excited upon his return on Friday! He treated us to some cookies (including the elusive purple club bars Jo tasked him with finding 2 weeks ago!), drink and some hilarious anecdotes about him marching around Havant in his vicar robes!

If you fancy tackling some shrubs, eating some yummy cookies, listening to more of Marcus' stories and hopefully hearing what he found out about the stone crest we discovered, join us in two weeks time for another trip to St Faiths!

Its Wednesday and six intrepid Goodgymers headed back to St Faiths to help with clearing their garden of weeds, overgrown bushes and any rubbish that was there. A big welcome back to Nick who joined us for his 2nd community mission. As we have been there most Wednesdays for a few weeks we had a list of tasks to work alongside their volunteers on the garden. John started tackling the front of the church and cut back a lot of the overgrown bushes, trees and weeds that runs alongside the path. Ssapan, Vicki, Nick, Maxine and myself started off by cleaning the white metal garden benches, chairs and tables so that people will want to sit on them and enjoy them more when visiting the garden. Once we had cleaned and rinsed those, we joined everyone else and tackled the bindweed that was still growing in the hedges, followed by clearing litter that had become more visible due to trees and bushes being cut back. Some of the interesting finds this evening were; Dashcam camera from a car, a partially eaten sausage roll, a single hub cap for a car but the best find was a blue ventian blind that was hidden in the undergrowth.

We'll be back in 2 weeks time so sign up here if you want to go . We had Tunnocks tea cakes and mint clubs this evening, the challenge is on to find the elusive purple raisin ones.