It was back to The Durham Ox for the last Sustrans task with Simon at the helm for this year.

Simon had been volunteering for Sustrans for over 25 years and now he has retired from work he is looking to travel more and enjoy his time without so many commitments.

This week we took up our snow shovels and removed a huge amount of wet leaves and dirt from this dogleg part of the National Cycle Network (NCN) around the back of the Durham Ox pub.

Once cleared we headed to The Showroom to buy Simon a drink or two to say thanks for all his help and hear a bit more about the man behind the legend! Simon will be back, just not for each Sustrans task.

Michelle very kindly got Simon a card (see photos) to thank him for all the hard work he has put into the tasks we've worked on with him.

Six goodgymers met, and we were quickly organised into a number of streets near the Botanical Gardens.

We were delivering leaflets to advertise the Yorkshire Chocolate Festivsl (Saturday 19th October 10am-4pm).

Every penny raised will go to Roundabout, South Yorkshire’s youth homeless charity, which makes a valuable difference to the lives of some of the region’s most vulnerable young people.

More details and tickets are available at: https://www.yorkshirechocolatefestival.com/

We finished almost in daylight but the autumnal evenings are slowly starting.

After a lovely evening of deliveries, Annie invited us to her place for tea and snacks. Thanks Annie!

5 energetic GoodGymers made it to the East side of Sheffield on one of our grottiest cycle paths at the intersection of Maltravers and Cricket Inn Road, where we met up with Sustrans Craig who tooled us up with litter pickers, loppers and brooms.

In no time had we removed the worst of the rubbish into 5 huge rubbish bags, chopped back the encroaching vegetation and cleared up the pavement.

We headed back to base in a slightly longer adventurous route before sprinting up the infamous Park Hill cobbled hills.

It was an enthusiastic crew of GoodGymers who braved the Sheffield drizzle to join new task leaders Dave and Chris from Sunnybank community centre to kickstart the community garden. the garden had been unkept for a good few years and the community is keen to develop it into a beautiful resource.

Local residents also joined us and within no time Dave and Chris had us getting into the wilderness with spades, forks, loppers, shears and...spoons. * we cleared the border of one of the plant beds * we dug out pesky sycamore seedlings * we cleaned the paved area of its moss and weeds * we cut back the big bush by the gate to its border * we cut back what used to be a lawn and had long overgrown.

After 45 minutes, the paved area looked good enough to sit on and picnic, the gate had been freed up of its invasive bush and the plant bed had been edged around.

There is still plenty to sink our teeth into before this jungle turns into an oasis and we're keen to come back!