Before the GoodGym Christmas social, 5 eager GGers headed to the Good Intent to pick up litter pickers and complete a 20 minute litter pick in the city centre. 2 bags full was good work and a well deserved social afterwards.

We completed a 7km run along with a 30 minute litter pick round the station. We managed to fill an entire bag.

Tonight Miriam and Richard embarked on a sunny evening plog along the River Rea (hence the pun!/pronunciation guide to non Brummies on the river name)

Once we reached Cannon Hill Park we were assisted by the loveliest kids who helped us and enjoyed using the litter pickers. 7K ran and a bag of rubbish collected and an ice cream pot seized from a squirrel.

I returned for a second week of Himalayan Balsam clearance at Handsworth Cemetery, being joined by Ryan on this occasion, who ran all the way here and back. It was just as satisfying this week, although there was the additional difficulty brought by encountering nettles and brambles as we went deeper into the area that had been overrun by the undesired plant. This was especially the case for Ryan as he was wearing shorts. We were joined by half a dozen extra volunteers and made fantastic progress in a couple of hours, almost removing all trace of the Balsam and clearing an area so big, it went further than the before picture from last week could even take in, I had to take an additional after photo to see where we had got to. Talking of pictures, I had worn my Goodgym sweater and posed for the pictures sporting it, while telling Ryan about the competition I had won it in. Josie told us that it will be an ongoing battle to eradicate the Balsam from the graveyard, possibly taking another three years of removal to get rid of it for good, and hopefully we'll be there to help achieve this goal.

What a satisfying task (especially for someone who loves graveyards) as I met up with Ben in Handsworth Cemetery on my walk home from work to help clear some Himalayan Balsam that had overgrown. Not quite as problematic as Japanese Knotweed but about as invasive, a large patch of the plant had sprung up in a section of the Cemetery, threatening to spread further and cover grave stones. A quick bit of training from Josie revealed how satisfying this task was going to be. The Balsam pulled easily from the ground no matter how big it had grown, and resembled a very weak kind of Bamboo. Then we had to snap the root at the end in order to make sure it wouldn't grow again. After a hard day at work, being able to do something that resembled throttling but without actual animal/people cruelty was just the tonic! It was also a great chance to catch up after an indistinctly long time since I had done a task with Ben. I'll be there again at the same task next week if you want to help us finish clearing up the Balsam.

Mike continued his amazing litter pick of the Number 11 Outer Circle route in Birmingham. In the morning, he began in Cotteridge where he had ended his Super Saturday, and was joined by Steven as he went from Selly Oak to Harborne. As you can see from the pictures, a lot of litter was collected along the way. I met up with Ben at City Hospital in the afternoon and we got straight to litter picking as we waited for Mike to get to us. It was just as well, as there was a ton of masks and other medical discards among the litter along the road, which was a bit of a wind tunnel from the bus stops outside the building. Taz came along to greet us before Mike arrived and we were granted a special Hi Viz for the occasion as we started to lag behind, picking lots of junk as we approached the Prison and went through Winson Green. We took a short cut so that we could meet up with Chloe in Handsworth. We stopped for the best of reasons, cake, to keep Mike going along the last leg to Erdington, where this 27 mile journey had begun on Saturday. We then picked along the road I live on, so I left them at the end of the road and the others went on to Perry Barr, and in Mike’s case, to the Finish Line in Erdington. What a remarkable task, taking in a whole city, meeting lots of emerging community groups who are taking ownership of the upkeep of their local environment. Hopefully we will have inspired many others to action as we were stopped many times along the way to ask what are group was or to be thanked by members of the public.