Back once again! At Sydney Gardens, for a festive session before Christmas and or last visit before the end of 2025.

Five GoodGymmers rocked up, some festive, some not, (some forgot), and our task today was to lay wood chip on the flower beds adjacent to Park entrance to the Holburne Museum. Cosmo, Aaron, Bennath, Nev and Meyrick were on hand to help the Friends of Sydney Gardens, who were busy removing leaves from the aforementioned flower beds in order to prepare them for our wood chip./

Roughly in keeping with the usual algorithm that the heavier the material, the further away from where it is needed, wood chip is fairly light, so we only needed to barrow it about 10 yards from where we refilled.

There was a bit of urgency towards the end, as we really needed to finish the beds before the hour was up, but we made it.

Many thanks to the Friends of Sydney Gardens, who invited us for cake and mulled wine in the Pavilion afterwards.

Woohoo, it's nearly Christmas AND it wasn't raining as 13 GoodGymmers, including Callum for his first ever good deed, Chloe for her first Group Run and Jo for her first Bristol good deed - we love you being part of GoodGym Bristol!

The running group and walking group set off for the sights and sounds of St Paul's, negotiating Christmas shoppers, revellers, roadworks and building to arrive at the lovely warm Emmaus office with lovely Xanne ready to tell is all about the charity and tonight's tasks - one indoor and one outdoor.

The outdoor group were filling a big and a small planter with compost and then being trusted to plant cyclamens, ivies and something we don't know the name for. Xanne knew there was a distinct lack of spades so there was a traditional GoodGym scouting-about for anything that looked spade-y and bucket-y. Winners were an actual spade, a couple of snow shovels and some desk in-trays (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) to fill a freezer drawer and other receptacles at great speed. Only to empty them into the planters and start all over again!

Meanwhile, indoors, the floor was deep in crates of Bric (as we professionals call bric-a-brac) to be sorted and shelved with all sorts of 70s and 80s reminiscences for those of us old enough to remember the 70s and 80s. We had a brush-o-matic that i remembered as soon as I saw it!

The outdoor team were soon laying out and planting the new plants, getting into the groove (other Madonna songs are available) with brushes to leave it clean and tidy - fit for a Queen (who we can now reveal was visiting two days later on Thursday). Sometimes we are actually quite good at keeping secrets. Not much of the tine but some of it.

Withe the outdoors finished, everyone headed indoors to help with the sorting and to find something to wear as headgear/hide behind for the team photo.

Off we then shuffled, via the excitement of the Christmas Market (sheds) for our post-task socialising as Workout's Club Haus had a private function- so mulled drinks and interesting hot chocolates it was.

Roll on next week for the pizzas we've pre-booked at Club Haus to celebrate Christmas GoodGym-style.