What a great adventure to go on... the first GoodGym Cardiff and Vale mission outside of Cardiff. The first challenge - to board the correct train to Barry! With some confusion at Cardiff Central and some wrongly signed trains, it is by some miracle that all four of us ended up not only on a train but the same train. Phew!

After admiring each others new black GoodGym T-shirts and some chatter about our January Challenge success, we soon arrived in Barry. Lucy called Mrs O's daughter as per the mission instructions and let her know that we would be arriving in around 20 minutes. There was just time for a quick photo with the Barry Station sign and for Mikey to invent the new budget Jim Henson puppet using a litter bin!

Then with the aid of google maps we were off on our 2 mile hilly run to the home of Mrs O. As we went we took in the sights and smells of Barry and noticed the areas where we would have a field day with our second mission of the day.. a running litter pick.

We arrived at the back gate to Mrs O's home and were greeted by her daughter. Unfortunately, the gate had had to be cable tied shut so we did a quick shifty around to the front via the alleyway. We had arrived!

We went indoors and met Mrs O and had a chat with her about her garden. She told us she had lived in Barry all her life and that she spent a lot of time looking out at her garden and worried that it was in need of a tidy up. She asked us to focus on cutting back one of the trees and on the area just in front of the window where it dropped down and become overgrown. After a quick drink of water, we had our trainers back on and were all set. Mrs O's daughter showed us where the tools were and offered to take a few photos for us while we got to work. Mrs O's daughter who arranged the mission for her mother mentioned that she saw a post on a local community group Facebook page about us and thought it was the perfect way to get her mother the help she needed with her garden. Ben was thrilled that his work in spreading the message of GoodGym missions through social media appeared to have worked!

Ben chose to get stuck into the area outside of the window and jumped down into the lowered area with a pro gymnast elegance (shame to say the exit from the lowered area was slightly less flattering and required a hand from Mikey - see the photos and imagine the scene from Titanic ' I will never let go Jack'. It was very touching)

Meanwhile in the back corner of the garden it was Emma Vs the tree. She used the loppers to great effect cutting back branch after branch. As she got to a thicker larger branch, Ben suggested Lucy take a photo of the branch falling as she cut through. As instructed Lucy collected the phone ready to take the victorious picture of Emma only for the branch to fall onto her head. Emma 0 - 1 Tree. But it did provide us with a good pun idea!

Mikey busied himself collecting up the branches of tree that Emma had removed and cut them down into smaller pieces so that they would fit into the waste bag we had been provided with. He also provided us with expertise on which plants should be cut back and which we should leave like the honeysuckle. What would we have done without him!

Lucy concentrated on collecting up the trimmings Ben had removed and disposing of them as well as collecting up pieces of rubbish from around the garden and apples that had fallen to the ground and had gone rotten. She also worked removing some grass and weeds that were growing up against the wall and obscuring the plant behind.

Once Ben had been rescued from the lowered area and we had all stopped laughing, he assisted Emma with the final large branches of the tree. We all worked together to finish cutting up the pieces of tree to get them into the rubbish bags and Lucy gave the patio a final sweep to finish off.

We gave a knock on the door to let Mrs O and her daughter know that we had finished and to check if there was anything else that they would like doing. They were really pleased with our work and Mrs O's daughter said she wouldn't have been able to do it herself as she has a bad back and that they were really grateful. She asked if we thought GoodGym could come back another time to do a tidy of the back garden too and we told her that we would love to come back and for her to let GoodGym HQ know.

We said goodbye and Mrs O's daughter suggested the route for us to take back to the main road. Her words 'just up that hill' still ringing in our ears we set off on our climb and journey back towards the station whilst doing our litter pick. What a lovely first GoodGym trip to Barry :)