To kick off the second May Bank Holiday weekend half-a-dozen Goodgymmers joined forces with Thames21 and Cleanup UK to clean up the New River in Hackney and Haringey

The New River runs from Hertfordshire to Stoke Newington, past Woodberry Down and the new Woodberry Wetlands nature reserve. It's one of London's many beautiful rivers which provide natural trails for a walk or run and an escape from the hustle and bustle of the Big Smoke but, alas, with all that footfall comes litter. And lots of it.

On this Saturday Thames21 and Cleanup UK arranged a mass clean up of the river, meeting at five different points where the litter was particularly bad.

Five handy regular London missioneers were treated to a visit from GG Bristol's own gazebo, Gary.

We started at two of the meeting points and converged behind the Rowley Gardens estate where the litter had piled up. We found all sorts:

• Cigarette butts
• Clothes
• The end of a bedstead
• Bottles
• Cans
• Crisp packets
• a UMD (which Frances learned was a game for a portable games player)
• a couple of mannequin's hands
• and lots of broken glass

A bizarre bazaar!

It was a drop-in and drop-out session so over the course of two-and-a-half hours GoodGymmers peeled off to clean themselves up and carry on with the Bank Holiday weekend. Alas none of us stayed behind for the free lunch (VERY rare for me!)

All in all it was a big success and we filled dozens of bags. Great team work all!