It was a tale of two teacups today (well one was strictly a mug) as 23 Goodgym legendary heroes braved the early stages of storm Eleanor to take on a double task of a litter pick and a tea and coffee outreach in conditions that were frankly appalling.

The rain started pretty much as soon as we gathered for the warm up and didn't let up until we got back. Kait claimed that these conditions didn't suit her as she is a fair weather runner, but we know that's not true as her very first run was the infamous HelpfulPeeps leaflet drowning of 2017 and she came back after that one (an anecdote I related to my kids last week as we finally sorted out the last of the water damaged cards from that night - yes the Christmas evenings really fly by in the Becker household).

But I digress.

Litter Pick and Free (Cold) Shower

Our original task tonight was treating the fence at St Werburghs primary school. Clearly that was a non-starter so having noticed that the road opposite the school was littered with beer cans and rubbish I suggested we clear that for them and they gave me an enthusiastic 'yes'. Of course I hadn't reckoned with the driving rain so we did what we could to clear the more accessible items and still managed to accrue 4 or 5 bags before it was time to go - with tonights collected items including a shoe (of course - it wouldn't be a litter pick without one), a mug and two computer motherboards. We then had fun fording some rather deep puddles to return safely back to base.

Well done all of you - and good work keeping yourselves warm with a few start jumps and squats at the bus stop while we retrieved the litter pickers and bags from the car. So proud.

Team Tea Trolley

A number of groups have been doing outreach to the city's homeless over the Christmas period but with the main Christmas shelter having closed last weekend and with many of those groups now pretty frazzled, it seemed like it might be a nice time for us to jump in and do our bit to offer a little extra comfort to folks sleeping rough in the rain tonight.

We packed up a couple of bags with some tea, coffee and biscuits and two three person teams headed off around Bristol to offer a hot drink to anyone who looked like they might appreciate it. By all accounts this went really well and was greatly appreciated with 16 people enjoying a hot drink and a chat from our lovely outreach teams. Well done to all involved!

Well done everyone, you all deserve medals - or at the very least a nice bath and a hot chocolate for braving the weather and coming along tonight. Special mention to Sally on her first run with GG Bristol - hopefully like Kait she'll return many times now because frankly if you can rock up on a night like tonight then there is nothing you can't do.