Nothing phases Bristol GoodGym, so a late cancellation of the expected task just meant an opportunity to explore a park we usually run through - Riverside Park. It's, er, by the river (Frome, pronounced Froome, Vaguely Northern Darren) and the A4032 dual carriageway, but they decided not to call it DualCarriagewaySide. No idea why.

It was lovely former Trainer Shona's first run back with us for a while and we were lucky enough to have her lead the (as ever, slightly elongated) run to the park, backmarked by Clo whilst Darren led the walking group and Melanie carted a lot of kit.

Surprisingly (it was all in the planning), we all arrived at pretty much the same time and set about getting gloved and head-torched up, plus the big butterfly lights Melanie had surprisingly remembered to both charge and bring along. They're very bright indeed.

Bags were soon being filled with gutter-blocking weeds and litter from the edges of the MUGA (Multi-Use Games Area) which we all call the basketball court, plus finds including a fire extinguisher, an empty bottle of Beckham perfume/aftershave, an unopened packet of frazzles and one sock.

We also discovered that Melanie's new phone takes astoundingly good night time photos so long as everyone stays still for a couple of seconds, which no-one does on a GoodGym task!

It was great to welcome back Liana and Becky, both pre-Covid GoodGymmers, enjoy Caz's 99th good deed (cake next week) and Darren's 200th good deed - Exciting 200 Club personalised t-shirt and CAKE TODAY - which didn't disappoint, homemade millionaire's shortbread with shop-bought vegan version.

A great night out and it was warm enough to sit outside workout to enjoy our Club Haus mug of tea/other drink of choice and eat millionaire's shortbread whilst chatting away - happy days :-)

It was a Bumper Birthday Night: massive happy birthday to Claire who celebrated with us (and a whole load of chocolate cake) tonight and to Kerry who had her birthday on Sunday. 🎂🎈🎉

It was great to have Stephen join us for the first time - welcome Stephen! And lovely to see Nick back from his 6 month stint in Canada, welcome back to the rain Nick! Alex and Richard also joined us an impressive 3 days after completing the Green Man Ultra - ouch! Great to see you both.

We had two tasks tonight to help with tonight. Maria led a group to Clifton to do leafleting for her orchestra who are doing a fundraising concert for the Bristol Drugs Project. The team did a great job of climbing Park Street, distributing the several hundred leaflets and working on their orchestra impressions/ invisible instrument playing.

Meanwhile, the rest of the gang headed to Faithspace where we were met by Suzanne and Marky. Marky set a small group to work with some gardening tasks in the green space opposite the community centre. The rest of the group helped Suzanne by distributing 200 leaflets about upcoming community centre events around the local area, prompting a game of Who Can Find A Letterbox - surprisingly challenging in Redcliffe!

We finished off with some biscuits, juice and a bit of core, then headed back to Queen Square with a stop for arm-circling-relays and finished off with tabata lunges and squats - you might feel them tomorrow.

I don't Claire what you say, there is no such thing as too much cake

After all of that, we headed in for birthday celebrations with not one, not two, but three types of cake. OOFT.

*Pun credit to Darren and obviously not me who it needed explaining to

It was great to have Fran, Ingrid and Jo join us for the first time tonight - welcome all! We had two tasks to spread our good deeds to. Mel had arranged a last minute trip to continue helping Hugh at the Southville Centre with their endless painting, and headed off with a group of walkers and out and back runners to cover the 3km round trip to the centre. As we were lucky not to have rain, they managed to continue with some outdoor painting to protect the wood in their grounds. Impressive work in the dark!

Meanwhile, the rest of the group split into Gary's Speedies and Shona's Sexies to get to the Northern Slopes. We were met by Julia and Caroline who got the group to work on continuing to clear a big area which is going to be used for planting new trees. With headtorches donned, the group chose their equipment of choice and got to work with scythes, loppers, shears, and even a Tree Popper and Steve's new favourite, The Slasher. There was also a bunch of rakers and shovelers moving all the newly chopped debris away from the area.

It's getting a little bit toasty over here

A second group got to work doing a litter-pick of the area, filling five bin bags and one recycling bag with waste. Top finds of the night included a toasty maker and hoover. We discussed the possibility of upcycling these (maybe or maybe not into presents), but opted to clear them away for Bristol Waste instead.

It was soon time to pack up, and we got treated to biscuits and tea from Julia, which was much appreciated on the cold hill! We headed back to town with some squats, sprints and chair holds. Once there, we presented the amazing Kait with her 200 Good Deeds t-shirt - massive well done Kait!! She had made some delicious peanut cookies so we feasted on those to celebrate and then a crowd went to Revolucion de Cuba for some more exotic feasting for March GoodGym Eats.

*Pun credit to Richard G!