After an uphill run to Heeley Green Community Garden, we marvelled at the view with a beautiful sunset and admired all the hard work the community group had put in since we visited last - a new mural was added over the pond, the flowers were in blossoms and the fruit trees - including a peach tree! - looked strong.

Our host Fran explained the task: a pesky and unruly border was encroaching over the path which was taken over by nettles and other weeds and a bush.

We then grabbed our spades, dug, scraped, uprooted and plugged branches through fences, putting on our head torches in the process. Ah the days are getting shorter!

In no time, the path had been litter picked by Michelle and Jono, while Rachel, Tim, Sergiu, Cat, Charly, Becca and Celine freed most of the path up.

What a gorgeous community project led by the local residents of Heeley Green!

It's suddenly starting to feel a bit autumnal in Sheffield! The debate was on this evening - jacket or no jacket. 6 of us set out through the station (always a fun cut through) and took the stairs up the side of the amphitheatre right to the top. We paused at the top for some incline press ups to take in the view as the sun went down across Sheffield. We popped into the Pearl at Park Hill on our way past for a nosy. Then we carried on to meet Simon at the Durham Ox. The pub has been closed for many years and right next to it is a section of cycle path that GoodGym Sheffield has been looking after for years. A developer has bought the building and it seems like Simon's plan to swap the cycle path over to the road side may be executed after all! This would mean a much more accessible section of cycle route but alas much less for us to do!

Did you know that the 'Durham Ox' was a giant Ox from Durham that did the rounds at a touring fair. There are many pubs named after this famous beast across the country.

Stage 1 of our task was litter picking - the biggest haul being a two seater sofa. Stage 2 was lopping and sweeping. After a decent stint, with the light fading, we thanked Simon and headed over to Park Hill, much to Tarj's delight. At the foot of the hill was split into pairs to do a hill sprint / circuit / relay that had us all breathing hard and (hopefully) smiling. All warmed up we ran back down the hill and to the Showroom. The evenings are getting darker which means headtorch season is coming. Thanks for a great evening team!

This evening's task saw us return to a church last visited by us many years ago when we painted their shipping container.

The run to the Church of the Nazarene was quite a challenging one with the building being situated at the top of a rather large Sheffield hill compounding the challenge of the 2.76 km run to it! We all made it though, and in good time too. When we arrived at the church we were met by Sophie who had all of the equipment required for the evening's tasks out waiting for us. The main task of the evening was sweeping the yard and paths bordering the church. A secondary task was a fan favorite- litterpicking!

Brushing aside any fatigue from the run we set about sweeping up the debris scattered throughout the yard into individual piles. These were subsequently swept onto spades and deposited into waste sacks. There were some bits of litter hiding in the bushes and under the container which were skillfully plucked by dexterous digits and precise pickers.

I'll show you who's moss!

When we had finished our work at the front of the church we diverted our efforts to the rear. Around the back there was moss to be scraped and swept up from the shady ground adjacent to the walls of the church. This was no problem for us though, we're no mossers.

After superbly sweeping the entirety of the outside of the building we said our goodbyes and set out on the much more pleasant route back to the Showroom. When we were almost back I had a little extra fitness in the bag for the 'eager' runners. We did a sprint up the GoodGym Grinders Hill steps followed by 10 box jumps up onto the concrete balls outside The Hubs. Following this we decided to stretch off in this area too, utilizing the structures to aid us with balancing and dropping our heels for more efficient stretching. Tim also gave us an acrobatics demonstration as a reward, traversing the high bars above us.

We heard the usual announcements about the fabulous GoodGym Barnsley tasks occurring every Wednesday evening without fail and then went our separate ways.