Strong winds made our Saturday run to Bramble farm a little more challenging than usual - although I'm convinced it was behind us when we ascended that final hill :-)

Bramble farm was set up in conjunction with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall as part of a televised project to convert an unused and bramble-infested space into an urban farm maintained by a group of families

Once there we were met by one of those families (Chris Kim and the utterly adorable Adeline) who split us into three groups.

Group one including our new recruit Ellie used wheelbarrows (jealous) to move muck from one end of the farm to the other.

Group two wielded forks and spades to dig out an extra planting channel.

Meanwhile group three worked on a few more of the eponymous brambles.

But the best task was left to last as we were all tasked with moving the resident saddle back pigs back to their new enclosure. Using gate sections to form a channel, we waited with considerable trepidation as Chris laid a trail of bread into the new pen.

Anticipating a bull-run style onslaught of ferociously hungry boars we worried over Chris' safety and double checked there were no gaps in the channel. Several of us put our affairs in order and made precautionary calls to our next of kin. I worried that my runners plaster kit might not be sufficient to tape closed the awful wounds left by the pigs fearsome teeth.

The gate opened!

And the two pigs ambled slowly and amiably up the channel, probably the least intimidating wildlife I have ever seen :-)

Our jobs done, we headed back to base, managing a few lunges and loop backs on the way.

Our plans had to be changed today as the early morning weather was not conducive to the second task that was planned - overnight and morning rain meant that our stencilling and painting task on the Bristol to Bath Railway Path had to be postponed.

No matter, as we knew that the A-maze-ing Malago Greenway Berry Maze project would be grateful of some extra pairs of hands as they try to get their project finished, so it was great that we had a good turnout today to support two tasks.

It was wonderful to welcome Gillian, the GoodGym Older People Operations Team Leader, who travelled over from London this morning and brought along Alasdair and Tom for their first GG experience and also Oliver, who had come along with Anna, for his first taste of the action too. Hope you all enjoyed doing things in Bristol fashion!

Our main task today was a completely new one organised at Narroways Hill - a little grassy & wooded ridge in the neighbourhood of St Werburghs. When British Rail threatened to sell it to developers in 1997 it caused such a reaction that 800 local people demonstrated to save it, thousands signed petitions & wrote letters and money was raised so it was purchased by Bristol City Council.

Nowadays, the site is looked after by Narroways Millennium Green Trust, the charity set up to administer and manage the site now that it has Millennium Green status. All the work needed to maintain the site and keep it available to be enjoyed by the local community (and wildlife!) is carried out by a small group of volunteers and enthusiasts.

A group of ten of us headed over to Narroways Hill and enjoyed a wonderful and varied task, including:

• Taking a railway sleeper up to Narroways Hill - we needed a few rest breaks for this as it was a particularly heavy sleeper!
• Gathering up Buddleia prunings in Church Field and using them to block a gap in the hedge of the Community Gardens - this looked amazing when it was done.
• A litter pick of the area - lots of trash, but the removal of old tents, cardboard, wooden pallets, plastic piping and the usual bottles and cans, had the place looking much tidier.
• Cutting back Ash seedlings and chopping out some of the brambles to stop these encroaching on the grassy area.

Looking down from the top of the hill, the red shirts looked like a particularly busy set of worker ants determined to get the job done before lunchtime.

Harry and the team of wonderful NMGT members seem delighted with what we managed to achieve and it would be great to be able to go back again soon to help some more - lots to do here in this green and very pleasant bit of land.

It’s a really nice flat run too along the Frome Valley Walkway, through Riverside Park.

Halo? Goodgym here!

Meanwhile over at the Berry Maze the team were hard at work removing the last of the brambles and berried rock so that mulch could be liberally applied to the paths and the way was clear for the berry plants to finally be installed. Tom and Alasdair worked at one of the toughest bramble sections while Davd and Gillian dug up and raked some of the neighbouring patches. Emma showed some particular versatility switching from digging to raking to stone lifting to wheelbarrowing at regular intervals (thanks for letting me have a go at the wheelbarrow, Emma).

All the while, Jack and Caroline offloaded rock and onloaded mulch, with Jack adding an old phone to the unusual finds accrued so far on the project!

Another fantastic Malago morning.

Back at Roll For The Soul, we wished good luck to our runners taking part in the Oxford Half Marathon on Sunday, chatted about the upcoming group runs and missions and congratulated Alex on becoming the latest GoodGym Bristol centurion - hitting 100 good deeds with today’s run. Nice one Alex!

A fantastic 35 runners met at Vivo tonight for the short run over to the Bearpit to help out our good friends at Incredible Edible; represented tonight by the amazing Hannah. Incredible Edible reclaim patches of urban wilderness to grow edible crops that are then available to anyone passing through. Working together with the wonderful businesses that make-up Bearpit CIC, this once neglected (and somewhat notorious) space has been transformed into a much greener and safer environment that encourages mixed use by the whole community.

As it turns out, Hannah had been a little held up so the only option was of course to run split relays alternating step ups and lunges with circuits round the edge until she arrived. We then split into two teams with Liam once again stepping up to lead a sortie to a secondary IE site at Spring Hill so that the remaining (inedible) Snowberries could be uprooted to make way for edible alternatives. With few cutting tools available, this was a very physical task and while the team worked Incredibly-edibly hard and many brave snowberries perished, some still remained (although in the interests of the title pun - thanks Alice - this is to be regarded as fake news and ignored for the remainder of this report). Well done Snowberry team!

The remainder of us tackled the Bearpit itself, using an assortment of lighting options to distinguish food from weed-ville. Special mention to Alex (good deeds = 99), Mel and Julia for their horticultural skills in this endeavour.

Finally, when the special snow-beret troops returned we decided to call it a day and thanking Hannah dashed off back to Queen Square for some stretches and a well-earned - if long-awaited - pizza.

Welcome to Sally, Kimberley and Saskia for joining us on their first GG Bristol group run tonight!

In other news it is nice to see the Bring-a-Friend tradition continuing. Anna received her red laces tonight for bringing Hollie for the last two weeks, and Julia actually qualified for a second pair. Abigail - I still have yours for bringing Sophie, sorry I couldn't find them amidst all the gloves and lights in my bag tonight!

Thanks very much to Charlie for leading the second group (and carrying backpack #2) tonight and Alice and Jack for back-marking (and group photos). Congratulations also to Mel, Jack and Charlie for becoming qualified GG run leaders!