A second visit to Sparks after our preliminary Massage Moving on Monday night, this time moving a clothing concession upstairs (going online) to create the space for the massage concession to move into - a veritable feast of weird and wonderful clothing items and props all needing to be boxed or bagged up and shifted up two floors - fortunately with the help of a lift.

John had let us in, Pavel (PJ) was helping to show us what and where whilst eating his dinner of a tub of Cadbury ice-cream and sharing a bar of chocolate with various GoodGymmers.

It was a pretty standard "make it up as we go along, who knows what we'll find" task for Kingsley and George's first ever GG task - we hope the mystery has created a great impression and you'll be back with us soon!

Many single shoes were found and moved upstairs before a suspiciously similar set of single shoes were found - that's art for you.

Displayed t-shirts were unhooked by the use of Melanie's crutch, boxes and bags were found, emptied of literal rubbish and stuffed with probably-not-rubbish and moved upstairs using a sack trolley, a flat-bed trolley and a shopping trolley - we were totally trollied! Clothes on rails with wheels were easy movers, other haphazard shapes requiring a much more skilled transportation and many items slid where possible as we weren't sure they withstand a GoodGym energetic carry.

I'm not sure anyone tracked the number of steps involved - it will have been a lot, but we met Lauren and Ben who were involved in the Massage concession - Lauren being the masseur and Ben being the helper - who have said they'd love to see GGers in store where they'll be offering back, neck and shoulder massages as well as other treatments, now further away from the big glass doors - much improved privacy!

With Pavel shoving the final items into the second floor space, we were soon heading back out of the now cleared space, and back to Workout, off home or off to November Eats at the excellent Pieminister - it's officially Pie Season, thanks to Richard B. And happy birthday to Roddy for his big 50 on Saturday - his six pack looking good on it in the lift.

Some of the residents overlooking Hebron Burial Ground will wake up this morning to find they are actually overlooking the Burial Ground and not just an overgrown hedge blocking out the daylight. Topiary challenge accepted, where the look we were going for was a "hedge".

Giby joined us for the first time and got stuck into the bramble bashing after joining the walking group - welcome!

A few blackberries were eaten before the spiky stalks joined the growing compost pile via the now-slick "rake and tarp" technique, a few graves were tripped over, a lot of puns proposed (I just wish i could remember them) and it was soon time to hide behind the (much lower) hedge for the final photo and the walkers and runners to race back to Queen Square/Workout and on to Las Iguanas for Eats, taking advantage of the Tortilla Tuesday offer and discussing the racism/merits of Speedy Gonzales - its always deep and meaningful at GoodGym Bristol!

Beating the impending heatwave (number 3 of 2025), we gathered in the shade at Workout (except Roddy who was determined to stand in the evening sun) and set off in two group - the runners with Richard now as a fully-fledged Fitness Leader (taking charge of the requisite First Aid Kit) and the walkers where no-one's really in charge and conversations are many and varied.

We had a plan, we knew we were preparing table cloths and decorations for the Festive Friends lunch on Friday, and watering the planters that were very dry. Except none of the decorations material shad been left out, so we kept ourselves busy with watering and weeding the edges of the building and front/side walls so he outside would look lovely for the Festive Friends. At least there wasn't a big pile of bunting to untangle!

There are planters of herbs and many fruits - a fig tree that's looking amazing (note to self - ensure we have a visit in 5 or 6 weeks' time when they should be ripening nicely), raspberries, gooseberries and wineberries where scientific sampling was carried out.

Then the Top Excitement of the evening overshadowed all other finding, conversations and puns as a little hedgehog was spotted and we ensured it found a quiet, shady spot to curl up. I say ensured, when we went back to check it had found itself a good temporary spot, but we're happy to take the credit as we COULD have helped if it had been needed.

We discussed a fitness session as the foot/cycle bridge is quite high, steps and slopes so lends itself, if only there'd not been an impending heatwave, and the pollution levels from the motorway below are possibly not ideal...

Soon we were climbing and descending the bridge just the once on our way back to Workout where it was the perfect evening for sitting out on the terrace.

Fantastic GoodGymming, Bristol!

It really was a (was a was a was a) knife evening. We set off sharply. The blade runners and knife walkers arrived… We picked through every blade… of grass. We carved through the park like a hot knife through butter. We… I give up with the knife puns now. We didn’t get all the litter but I’ll get to the point and cut to the chase…

Thanks for helping write the report everyone, this will only make sense to us. For some added information we went to Spith Street park and Dame Emily park and did some litter picking 👀

What a first session for Michael.

Shanks for the memories.

Until next time…