Six brave GoodGym heroes came out when the weather was atrocious! The weather surprisingly cleared so we remained dry while we weeded, and used the stepping stones in the underpass. (despite Richard and Caroline recreating the iconic Gandalf/Balrog battle!). Four runners made it all the way back and were treated to some excellent donuts from Ed as it was his birthday! Delicious and of the 11 donuts, 4 people ate a total of 9 :-).

Three shiny new GoodGymmers joined the Bristol Group Run which, this week, was 40% "starts with" F - Faye and Finbar were the new Fs on the block with Ciaran being the newest GoodGymmer for only a couple of minutes in Queen Square.

All three were up for joining the running group so set off with Vaguely Northern Darren in the lead, Richard B backmarking and Freya and Timtryingvto match each other's stride length.

By the time the walking group of Melanie, Richard G and Frances arrived (having not been accosted by any small dogs taking umbridge at Richard G this week) the front of St Werburgh's Community Centre was already looking less weedy, or at least all the weeds were now in piles waiting for the two very-well-used brooms to sweep by.

As is so often the case with GoodGym Bristol group runs, a yoga class was taking place inside the Community Centre, right by where we were weeding and we tried really hard to be quiet-ish but we do get carried away with our chatting... Anyway, should there have been a fire, the yogis escape route would have been much less weedy than before our GG skills had been deployed.

We were soon tidying up and enjoying the Lime and Cardamom biscuits Frances had kindly baked and brought along to celebrate her 102nd good deed - very tasty, looking forward to the recipe being added to the comments. It was inly the mention of biscuits that finally made Freya and Ciaran finally stop sweeping and tidying, such dedication to the task.

We were soon Workout-bound, back through the parks and streets of Bristol and into Club Haus where we sat out by the river by choice and not because there was speed dating at the tables inside. Lots more time to chat and hear about goings on, especially Richard B's bonkers long-distance running and Darren and Melanie's long-distance travelling to parkruns.

Another great evening, everyone, and already looking forward to the next one.

The runners were outnumbered by the walkers two to one for the adventure to St Werburgh's Community Centre with Vaguely Northern Darren and Ed already hard at it when the walkers reached the "King/Queen of the Castle" bridge from Riverside Park.

The walkway around the building was one of the many areas that's seen an explosion of weeds with the warm(-ish) and decidedly wet weather. We were soon widening the walkways again and having many-a deep philosophical discussion including how to spell "doolalley", whether it stems from doodle-alley and why small creatures seem to take an aggressive bee line for Richard G. We slso all learned more about msle and female courgette flowers as well as poppies and their similarity to some sort of banana - the name escapes me.

A quick tidy up and end-of-task photo followed, including Frances who wasn"t in the pre-task "we're actually all in red t-shirts" photo, suggested by Jason. For the record, Frances was also early to the meet up, just not quite as early, and we set off at 6.25 as it's "a bit of a way" even without the lively tour checking out future potential GoodGym tasks, which was really enjoyed by everyone.

Top work and great chatting!

*in depth research post-run shows its actually doolally with dubious empire roots%2C%20ultimately%20from)

It was almost not raining, and then only drizzly mizzly on the 15 GoodGymmers who artived in Queen Square for a lovely Group Run or Walk.

Not only were Gaia and Genevieve back for a second deed, Will and Seb were the first to arrive for their very first visits to GoodGym - we hope to see you both again very soon, in your matching outfits!

The runners outnumbered the walkers this week and 9 GoodGymmers were sandwiched between Run Leaders Vaguely Northern Darren and Richard B as they set off to St Werburgh's Community Centre and the four walkers set about hunting litter on a walk across the city centre.

The runners navigated the flooded subway via the handily-placed Bricks of Dryness (BoDs) and set about tidying the play area in St Werburghs. We definitely didn't touch the plant that had the 'Do not touch' sign on it, but we did clear all of the soil, remove the weeds, and tidy toys up, as requested.

Meanwhile, litter-picking and tidying were happening on the walk up to and around Brunswick Square and, once that was tidier, through parts of the Cemetery where Richard G, Jason and Frances were introduced to the wonders of Renée and Renata by Melanie. The 80s were odd.

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...

It was a double-header group run for Bristol GoodGym with the walkers heading to a different task than the runners!

The runners sprinted (at a jogging pace) over to St Werburgh's Community Centre for the first tidy up of the outside space this year - we're hoping to make this a regular task this year to get on top of the more pesky weeds. We think there was a yoga/relaxation class going on as people in one room were lying in the dark, otherwise we should probably have alerted someone...

The runners did say they could so with more tools there - asked for info to pass to the task owner, the on-chorus response was "snippy-snips" at which point Melanie realised that, much like parenting toddlers, its sometimes not useful to have used nicknames for items. It's both short and long snippy-snips desired - or secateurs and shears to is gardening professionals.

Meanwhile, the runners returned to the day-time Community Mission task beneficiary at Sparks to get a second coat of paint on the newly green and blue walls. With rollers and dodgy brushes, it was a much quicker start which was great as we'd have been needing to leave before Dave had managed to get the lid off the paint at lunchtime!

With both areas looking fabulously smart, it was time to RV back at Workout where there was speed-dating happening but we were all talked out.