The GoodGym Christmas elves paid a visit to the Baffins Pond Association complex tonight to put on the Christmas cheer!

The brief was clear: if you liked it then you should've put a bauble on it!!

Baffins had an impressive array of decorations at the ready: snowflakes, stars, strings of lights, garlands, tinsel, wreaths and baubles of every shape and colour. We covered every surface imaginable with sparkle while Christmas tunes were blasting and even had a visit from some miniature GoodGymers including one very cute reindeer!

Laura shimmied up a (North) pole to hang one final disco ball above Santa's head.

This was an excellent warm up for the GoodGym Portsmouth holiday party this weekend! Bring on the festivities and ho ho holiday season.

Special shout outs to Wilson and Sammy for their wonderfully festive attire!

I don't know about everyone else, but I can still smell cleaning products even after leaving the task and washing my hands!

Tonight we were helping Community Kettle CIC to clean up their new venue and get it a little bit closer to being ready to open. They will be opening the first intergenerational community hub in the country, with the initial focus being new parents and newly retired people. There are lots of other exciting plans for the future too, we will definitely be coming back again!

The venue was previously a doggy day care so we were scrubbing floors and walls to get rid of the dog smells, hair and dust.

From polite mops to school calendars, we chatted about (& misheard!) many different topics. Tony and Dave even got to flex their lifting muscles to move some furniture.

It was another positive end to a Wednesday, bringing a bit of joy to midweek!

Some very intrepid GoodGymmers took to the streets of Fratton to support the Big Local light festival.

Vicki and Lucy were on the door of Victory Business Centre guiding people to the business yard where Harry, Wilson, Sinead, Isaac and Thomas were finding and delivering lanterns ready for the parade. The lantern allocation was quite stressful but team work made the dream work and everyone had a lantern in time for the start of the parade. Wilson and Sinead had the honour of carrying the Fratton Fox, whilst Isaac and Thomas had the whale and Harry got to carry a very large owl! Vicki, Lucy and Jen carried some of the GoodGym lanterns and were tasked with ensuring participants stayed on the pavement.

At the end of the parade we helped retrieve lights and sticks from lanterns ready for reuse next year before exploring some of the other exhibits at St Mary's Church.

Thanks everyone for you help in the madness, FBL is really grateful to of you!

In the biblical rain and flooded pavements we could have probably used an ark this evening... On the plus side, Sam (the task owner) did only give us the indoor jobs to do.

St Wilfred's church has its final service on Sunday, Tracey has been part of the musical accompaniment to many services here and Jen came to preschool here so they both had a walk down memory lane. Everyone else had nostalgic memories evoked by some of the different pieces we found in the areas we were helping clear.

Half the team were in the kitchen emptying the cupboards and pantry of glasses, vases, cleaning equipment and more tea towels than I've ever seen including a Muppet Show one that must have been from the 80s!

The other half of the team were upstairs getting their steps up emptying the cupboards of large bibles and various robes and associated materials.

Everything was put in the small hall for transport to St Mary's and St Faith's, scrap metal or donation to other causes / tip!

We managed to dry off and warm up before heading back out into the flooded streets for our journeys home.

Thanks team, great to see you all and let me know if you find an ark anywhere!