After a winter full of cancelled tasks thanks to poor weather, it was a joy to be out in the sunshine at last!

We have a long history with Marston Forest Garden, having helped out and witnessed it's transformation since it's early days. This time we were moving and replanting a Sea Buckthorn tree (very spikey), collecting barrow loads of compost from the communal compost pile, and weeding away grass from around the Mulberry tree and surrounding herbs.

Two hours whizzed by and our Vitamin D levels got a boost.

On Wednesday we did our own mini Morse plog around Oxford.

Taking inspiration from the locations used in Inspector Morse films we set off to visit the sites of significance in central Oxford and Jericho, litter picking as we went.

From the Oxford police station (sadly, no Morse cut out in the windows) to the Phoenix Picturehouse we ran and walked our way across the city, amassing 2 sacks of litter and covering 3.75 miles.

Favourite sightings: The Oxford Story Museum telephone box (definitely worth a detour down Pembroke Street), and the murals on Canal Street.

It's our Birthday!

To celebrate GoodGym Oxford being 6 years old a bevy of GoodGymers got together at County Hall. Of course we had to include a Good Deed in our birthday celebrations (no Wednesday is complete without one), so we packaged up 3 boxes of old trainers to send to JogOn for repurposing and recycling. These had been collected up from friends, family and colleagues over the previous few weeks, saving them from going to landfill.

With 26 GoodGymers in attendance that task was complete in record time, leaving us the rest of the evening to chat over drinks and nibbles, reminiscing about the past 6 years and speculating about what the future might bring.

Our 6 year Good Deed count is 8038. Happy Birthday to Us!

A couple of weeks ago we spent our evening running and walking around Oxford pinning up posters recruiting letter writers for 'From Me to You' - a charity focused on reducing loneliness in people receiving treatment for cancer. This week we decided to try writing our own letters.

Reading through the tips and guidance on how to approach writing our letters, we quickly put pen to paper, ending up with a beautifully eclectic mix of missives. Creativity shone through with poems and games included, plus anecdotes about daily life etc. It was really interesting to consider what to write to a total stranger, and easier than we thought it would be once you start.

Find out more about writing your own letters here.

Happy Birthday Bethan. Thank you for baking a lovely cake Alice.