We spent the morning giving Brunswick a last tidy before Christmas. Pulling out some weeds and brambles and making the path more visible again.

We were joined by a Christmas Robin who kept an eye on our progress hoping for some early presents 🐛

Just wow.

Richard B was unstoppable once we'd arrived and found the task beneficiary to get the tools. The rest of us thought we were working really hard until we could suddenly see each other as Richard B chopped a swathe through the middle of our bramble patch - amazing work!

All of us were keen to keep moving as it was one of those nights when the temperature drops away and it suddenly Really Quite Cold and gardening gloves aren't that warm. it definitely keeps is all on our toes (which, usefully, is one of my physio exercises - not yet ticked off for today).

Princess Caraboo was looking in the party mood, admiring our work from her throne, under her careful supervision we're making real progress to be able to see the ground, although a lot of bramble toots are going to need pulling out when we can see them.

Back to Workout to enjoy the Christmas session of the painting class who all looked serene until they had table tennis bats is their hands when aggression definitely took over. Fortunately their talent at stopping the ping pong ball getting as far as us was exemplary.

The last sense of amazement was saved for the Coffee Arr book from the bookshelf - who knew that "Oasis with Palm Trees" was even possible? We didn't pass it to the lively bar staff...

Back again next week for our Scavenger Litter Pick Festive Burger mash-up - right up our street!

Having double and even triple checked we were definitely on for St Werb's Community Centre, its was time to get excited about counting cutlery for the Festive Friends event. Oh, and wrapping Christmas gifts.

It was a great first task for https://www.thecomedybox.co.uk/site/301.asp?catID=2508 to get stuck in to, with Ousmane proving his photography skills weren't a one-off last week.

As the runners sped (faster than the walkers) off across town, the walkers maximised their chat time on a delightfully dry evening, past the Christmas Fair in Castle Park and many-a group enjoying the evening.

Harsheh has developed a new skill of getting ins huge number of the photos, whilst Becky shared that attaching lengths of sticky tape to a technical T-shirt is a fabulous storage tactic as they peel back off wherever your ready for them, no fluff included!

The cutlery was speedily counted with Carolineon Quality Control to ensure no soup spoons were mixed in with the dessert spoons before moving on to ensure every price sticker was removed pre-wrapping.

The team effort of cutting paper and tape and wrapping the gifts, with only Richard B managing to make a parcel look rude, was a veritable hive of activity and soon the trays of unwrapped gifts were trays of festively wrapped ones.

The walkers had a head-start but soon saw the runners ahead of then at a road crossing enabling most of the runners to have already ordered at the bar and arranged a big enough table for us to enjoy the treat of mince pies from Richard B.

That was a great evening, shall we so it all again next week? Fewer* parcels to wrap though. *None.

It was great to get started on a new task this morning, joining forces with Jason from the Southmead Hospital Allotment team and regular volunteer, Georgina, to start work on clearing space for the creation of a wildflower meadow.

Despite the persistent rain, we were far from miserable and it was lovely to welcome back Alexandra, now GoodGyming in Cambridge, but here in Bristol for a week and catch up on her news. We also welcomed Babu attending his first GoodGym task, and demonstrating great perseverance in tracking us down.

With Melanie and Richard making up our dream team we set about cutting out and removing slices of turf and made good progress until Jason finally called time on today's effort, but keen to have us back again.

Hopefully this will turn into a regular monthly session, as there's plenty to do here.

Great work everyone!

Fantastic start to Friday... 6 GoodGymers met on a slightly damp and cold morning and cleared leaves from the pavement and kerbside outside Windmill Hill City Farm. It was amazing how much was cleared in just 40 minutes, making access to farm safer. Great job all!

Helen - thanks for sharing some of your pics, love the golden leaves!

Another task switch for the ever-flexible GoodGym Bristol team as the task beneficiaries couldn't make it - plogging to the rescue with different routes for runners and walkers.

The runners agreed (well, were persuaded under duress) to pop into Old Market Assembly if they were passing to checking they DO have a booking for the panto theatre-goers after far too much "Oh no, they haven't", "Oh yes, they have" email exchanges and unanswered phone calls and messages. Phew.

Ousmane joined us for the very forst time having already conpleted his TaskForce training AND had volunteered as photographer - thank you and welcome! And Becky was back, having not waited 5 years again this time.

Everyone chipped in with Caroline backmarking, Vaguely Northern Darren run leading, Jason choosing the runners' target zone, Richardpromoting GG to everyone with his merch-wearing and Kingsley keepy-uppy conversations about footballing. Or something. Ed and Melanie were even helped by a petrol tanker driver who brought litter to us so we didn't get too close to his tanker delivery. Excellent team effort, everyone.

Looking forward to the rest of our December sessions :-)