A great turnout today for the June session with Manor Woods Valley Group. Indeed, with three back to back community missions today, for some this wasn't their first good deed of the day and for one particular individual it was their 3rd (with a 4th 'regular' mission still to come!)

Today's task was to clear a space around the new fruit trees, both to prevent them becoming lost in the brambles and also to encourage some wildflowers with the newly available light.

In no time at all we had cleared a large area and we headed off into the sunshine, some to their next mission, one on his holidays (have a great time!) and - for Danica, an extra assignment to save a local hedgerow.

As Richard walked back he tried to remember what had happened that evening.

There was the swan that thought it was a boat, a guest appearance as run leader and a monkey dressed as a yeti. All before we got to Emmaus. One of those might not have happened.

Our task this evening was a bit of a spruce up of the area outside Emmaus. A lop, a chop, a bit off the top. Some litter, getting fitter, do you know the way to that shop? Happy 10th birthday to Frances who has done her 10th good deed this evening, with hopefully many more to come. I’ve probably missed something but I’m almost home now.

Until next time…

Dig over a patch of ground, they said. A few dry days after some wet ones should have been ideal, shouldn't it?

An uphill run read to an uphill challenge - the weed suppressing cardboard had let a fair few weeds in but the ground felt like sold clay and it was a full-on workout to try to get forks into the ground and then break the weeds out of the clumps of claggy soil, possibly spreading more weed seed than we were removing...

Alice experienced some stone-throwing kids on her way to GoodGym but managed a full-on mindful recovery by going to see the Bramble Farm kids - these ones of the goat variety.

We were small in number but mighty in effect and filled wheelbarrow after after wheelbarrow (technically only two wheelbarrows) full of weeds except the bindweed which we all know goes in the yellow bindweed bucket. Obviously.

There was some drama over passing a spade between GoodGymmers which established a Spade etiquette which became a Spade-iquette which elicited a chorus of "No, I'm Spade-icus". In case that wasn't clear.

Other members of the cooperative were really appreciative and we'd (weed) had a great time as we set off back up the hill with the gorgeous sunshine on our backs.

Another lovely evening with good friends.

Five fantastic factor 50 Goodgymers basking in the Bristolian sun were joined my Mark and his daughter in our regular litter pick for surfers against sewage. Big thank you to Amy, Lucio, Chris and Paul for wading through the long grass in search of that pesky litter. As always Mark's wheelbarrow prowess was awesome and we thank him and give ourselves a big cow pat on the back for making a big difference to the banks today.

So much daylight for the GoodGymmers who met at a buzzing Queen Square in the sunshine - numerous (2) volleyball games, a drum and base solo party and lots of after-work socialising. There wasn't a spare seat to be had at King Street as we walked or ran past the drinkers.

Vaguely Northern Darren was run leading through the streets and parks and already had the team on the task by the time the walkers were crossing the bridge over the motorway.

There were various areas needing weeding and sweeping and we were soon differentiating between nice plants to keep and weeds to murder, made easier when they were growing on the path or in the wall! We found watering cans, a water butt and, just too late, a hosepipe.

Sneaking into the shady huts for our end of task photo, Paul managed to be in the photo twice using his wily cunning. Or something.

The runners set off for the return to Queen Square after a quick rendition (ish) of Here Comes the Hot Stepper, everyone getting excited about Phill's vegan millionaire's shortbread to celebrate his 200th good deed which was actually on Saturday but he forgot to offer them round so the Tuesday Group Run Club benefitted instead.

We enjoyed sitting outside at workout with a Very Funny new member of the refurbished bar staff (the bar was refurbished, not the staff, they're just new), chatting away until there was only one piece of shortbread left. We're all so polite in Bristol.

It was great to meet Josh whose first good deed was last week when I was poorly - only a few of last week's attendees were here this week so Josh had a whole lot more faces and names to get used to, helped by having two Davids/Daves - just like GG Central where we hear our Godfather Dave is not Techy Dave, who has been working tirelessly to get the website functionality back up and running!