After a quick warm up of practicing picking up the trees and then throwing them onto the giant piles, it was time to set off to find some abandoned Christmas trees.

My group branched out a little too far and ended up separated after the first road. After searching high and low for abandoned trees it was soon time to head to out meeting point to be reunited.

Only 5 days later than last year and oh so many less trees!! We still relocated 12 Christmas trees to recycling piles at Hilly Fields. These Christmas trees will be used to make woodchip for our local parks.

It was also an evening on celebrations, it's 9 years that we've been doing good in the borough!! Happy 9th Birthday!

It was time for the big event, our favourite task of the year and that's putting the Christmas decorations up at Seniors, not going for drinks at the Blythe Hill Tavern (although that comes a close second)! We eagerly headed up the hills to Senior's wearing our flashing scrunchies to draw attention to us even more.

Paul and Jacqueline had arrived earlier than us (it's like the start of the dream...) and had started putting the blue and silver tree up in the dance hall.

The rest of us quickly divided into groups and found a role from untangling lights to hanging tinsel to decorating the second tree.

Time really flies when you're having fun or wearing all the tinsel, it was time to hang the last decorations and take our group photo! Then onto the Blythe Hill Tavern for celebratory Christmas drinks.

I would like to say a huge thank you for all the hard work that you do for the community groups we support - you're all amazing!!

With the promise of a relaxing evening bulb planting, the number of red tshirts (some hidden under many layers) was promising as we headed off to RUSS Community Housing, only to find out we weren't planting bulbs but instead shifting topsoil!

In true GoodGym spirit no one minded the change of task and it was definitely a task that kept us warm!

Part of the group stayed by the time capsule (and hopefully didn't open it!!) ready to receive the bags of top soil and empty them onto some pre-laid out cardboard.

Another part of the group tackled digging up the top soil and putting it into bags. There was a good rhythm going by the end including some lovely delicate shoveling with the small spade!

The remainder of the group wheeled the bags to and from both locations! There was a variety of modes of transport, some could handle the job and some looked like they might tip over at anytime - the modes of transport, not the GoodGymers!!

We were then treated to tea and biscuits to warm us up before we headed back to Glass Mill for a quick cool down. Not before we admired Vic's running technique as she disappeared into the distance and decided to try our best to replicate but we might have all ended up with pulled muscles so we'll leave that to the experts!