Seven runners and four walkers made their way to Riverside Park in the evening sunshine to do what we do best...rid the parks of rubbish with style, panache and a little je ne sais quoi! (one of our new GoodGymers is French and I remembered that I am fluent at French! :-) So bienvenue to Genevieve and benvenuta to Brent GoodGymer Gaia (who's Italian, which is not one of the many languages I speak so had to Google that one.) It felt as if spring had finally arrived this evening and while we worked hard at the task, it was great to hear the chat and laughter while doing good, and seeing passers by smile and acknowledge the work we were doing for our community.

What a bumper crop of GoodGymmers under blue skies for a foray to Brunswick Cemetery after the inaugural presentation of Very Exciting GoodGym Bristol Badges for Run Leaders, TaskForce and extra special helpers. Watch this space for future developments!

We were joined by Jordan on his first good deed, Tom on his first group run and Freya back for her second Tuesday and looking totally different without her big woolly hat - fantastic to have you all on board. And yes, it normally appears a little bit chaotic at times but is definitely All Under Control.

With the tree popper/root puller on site and training demonstrations given by Top Tree Popper Marianne, Jordan was in his element tracking down protruding sycamores and brambles to be collected up into the Dumpy Sack of Doom, alongside Richard B's entrenching tool's victims.

Valè and Richard G took to the paving slab tidying, Richard missing his seasonal role as a lamppost already.

The bindweed/buttercup/sycamore club scouted out more widely - Caroline, Jason, Janka and Frances uncovered lots of ground and were very good at leaving the non-weed plants to grow, whilst Tom moved on to earn his Pathfinder status with the muddiness redistributed away from the golden gravel.

Ed and Nik grabbed the loppers and went in search of bigger things to chop - do much is now growing so fast!

And Janka's email address is nothing like kangaroo, in case you were wondering.

Until next week!

8 runners (backmarked beautifully by David) and 3 walkers left Queen's Square 5 minutes apart and met exactly 1 kilometre from our starting position. Melanie stayed local as shes being unusually sensible with her broken foot.

For this week's homework, I would like to know how fast each group walked/ran and the first to correctly answer, will win a prize!

On with the task, we found the tools for the job behind reception and set to work on clearing up this amazing (and very well used) community space.

11 hands made light work of the weeds while dodging pre- and post-Pilates people (a novelty, we're more used to Yoga people), and attempting to translate the French lesson from the PowerPoint slides (Vaguely Northern Darren's 'F' in French A-level in 1990 did not help!^)

Richard G diversified and as well as proving adept at light holding, showed us his super sweeping skills, Gareth showed us his knife skills for those hard to reach wall weeds and Frances told a pirate joke that Laura (as our resident Cornish pirate) hadn't heard before!

When there were no more weeds to remove, the Walkers headed in to the night and Jason joined the runners for a change and showed us he can run if he really really really has to!

^Melanie's "A" at A-level Maths in 1991 thinks this was probably also 1991...

An exciting wheelbarrow-based task was always going to bring Paul B to a group run and this time we were joined by fellow Paul, newcomer PaulC who had the good grace to stand next to Paul B as we went round the circle to "count in" with our names. We have a thing about trying to break the numbering thing and having name twins is a sure fire way to break it.

We were also glad to be re-joined by Laura (let me know if the T-shirt still doesn't arrive) and Valè who cant remember yet why she stopped coming over three years ago but really enjoyed being back. So that's OK then. Nik is now officially a pro as he has a handful of good deeds under his belt.

The running group set of on a harbour loop, led by Vaguely Northern Darren and backmarked by birthday boy Richard B who celebrated on his actual birthday by running the very muddy Ironwood Challenge 10K.

Meanwhile, the dependable walkers headed directly to Faithspace to join Sarah and Marky to gather tools into a shiny new trolley (no more trolley-dollying for us!) and the two all-important wheelbarrows as we had a task to tackle!

The aim was to extend the gravel paths around the planters we'd filled last year, and top up the planters with some fresh compost. So, out with the turf, in with the gravel - the runners arrived and the team split into compost loaders (into the dumpy bag in the trolley), gravel loaders into wheelbarrows and turf edgers and lifters to make space for the gravel. Top Tip 1 - we finally realised there aren't any pedestrian crossings on the harbour loop so no friendly red man to enable a catching of breath/squat and lunge practice Top Tip 2 - white spray paint doesn't show up well on wet grass in the dark - specialist edger Richard G had the genius idea to turn on the Big Lights we'd carried over

We were lucky that the excess turf could be dumped, sorry, carefully piled, into mounds to become grass seats next to the paths, but even so, two barrow loads of gravel arrived before there was space to use it so all hands switched to turf clearing so Paul B could show us all how to handle a barrow like a pro..: A fall from grace as the wheelbarrow had other ideas and instead deposited a pile of gravel onto the grass instead of the path. And a lot of giggles.

At some point it stopped raining but none of is had taken any notice of the rain in the first place.

It was action in all directions as compost and gravel arrived, empties returned and mounds grew as bare paths were made (not to be confused with bear paths - that's another week). Some highly skilled "stomping" of soil and then gravel led Sarah and Marky to mistakenly believe we knew what we were doing - you can fool all the people some of the time. Darren was (apparently) given carte-blanche to make one corner happen and decided a sweeping curve was in order. So we took it one step further to create a GoodGym mini-path for small creatures with two Gs giving us plausible deniability as he forgot what the logo looked like and the Gs are both facing the same way with straight bars. So it couldn't possibly have been us...

With a bit of compost added to a nearby heap and us not breaking the new super-duper trolley (we managed to put it back together perfectly, eh Jason and Valè?), tools were given a quick wipe on the wet grass and all taken back to Marky's workshop having turned down the offer of squash and biscuits this time as we'd spent a teeny bit longer at the task than intended...

The runners set off back to Workout the short (walkers) way and sent back news that there was speed dating at Club Haus and it was too chilly to sit outdoors what with it being February so we headed to The Brew House so Ed could order his tea/supper/dinner and we could all eat Richard B's delicious homemade lamingtons (sp?) to remind us all again it was his birthday week.

Top Tasking, Team!

We are lucky that we have a lot of opportunities on our doorstep that delightfully include runners having a fun 4.5 km run around the flat and ever-changing harbourside. Especially so when the rain is, again, causing bits of Bristol to disappear under puddles masquerading as lakes.

The walkers made short shrift of the journey to Redcliffe Hill, carrying the lights, litter pickers, bags and hand tools, ready for action and even remembering to take a "before" photo.

Gloves were donned, lights positioned, cameras at the ready and ACTION as the top layer of litter was cleared, the surface dead bindweed attached to live roots was bundled and the revealed second layer of rubbish cleared. And the rain had stopped!

The runners arrived with a sprint finish and squelchy trainers to attack the area from the far side which was less mess so they soon reappeared through the shrubbery.

Big plants hanging over the pavement were cut back and five bags were soon full, just as it started raining and everyone headed back to Workout for the speed dating (unintentionally) and on to the Brewhouse for a nice pot of tea that they may or may not serve after 5.