It was a beautiful day for a spot of litter picking in wellies and waders - clearing natural and unnatural river blockages with the Frome Fairies. It was a tough core workout attempting to stay upright and climbing up the bank to get out!

Well, it was a flipping marvelous day for a spot if running, weeding and drinking (Eastville Park's Elderflower Cordial).

The sun was shining when we set out from Mud Dock and made our way to Eastville. This was one of our longer runs and everyone absolutely smashed it!

When we got to the park we picked up our shovels, trowels, brooms and wheelbarrow's and set about around the perimeter of the lake removing weeds whilst being careful not to dislodge the stones. The Eastville Park heron does not like errant stones in his lake.

Fi arrived a bit later, having only managed to rescue a frightened and screeching parakeet (double good deed or new badge worthy for sure!)

Once we had made our way around the lake we gathered back to say our farewells and congratulate Shreena on achieving both her 50th good deed and anither year of life!

I hear there was also some excellent cake at Mud Dock :)

Today half a dozen fearless runners braved the harsh elements and met at mud dock to run 5km in the icy rain. We were helping frome fairies out with their Santa’s grotto at the pond at eastville park.

We doubled our numbers by meeting the rest of the group there who came straight from parkrun. Thankfully the task was inside a tent and the fairies had us helping out with decorating the grotto for the children. Some of us were climbing ladders to hang festive decorations from the ceiling. Others were cutting out glittery stars or helping with the flooring.

Even though we were out of the rain it was still chilly and in true Goodgym fashion Caroline and Julie were kind enough to lend a few layers to a less prepared Goodgymer. Thanks Guys! Rich was our handy photographer for the day and took some great pictures. We left the tent looking like a Pinterest inspiration board titled ‘rustic Christmas’ and made our way back in the rain while dreaming of teas and hot showers.

Well done to everyone who gave up their dry warm beds to help us out on this rainy winter Saturday morning - and an extra special mention to our Cardiff friends who came over to join us today!

Given that it turned to Winter literally overnight, it was fantastic to have so many people come along and help out the Frome Fairies with a bit of maintenance work down at Eastville park yesterday. New runner Izzy is obviously made of sterner stuff choosing this freezing morning to embark on her very first GG Bristol outing - coming very well prepared with plenty of warm layers :)

Since the task was to take place on the actual parkrun route next to the lake, it seemed only right to offer any parkrun'ers the chance to join directly from the event so by the time my group arrived from the mud dock there was already plenty of activity - though it was noticable that the sunny side of the lake seemed to have rather more occupants than the rather chilly shady side. Special mention though to Richard who still chose the more remote Pomphrey option (with a Halloween theme!) before running over to Eastville for the task.

Our host Andrew dished out hoes and spades and everyone got to work digging out weeds around the edge of the lakeside trail. This was just about physical enough to keep people warm and with folks by now spaced out all along the perimeter we managed to cover a lot of ground.

A small cut to Sarah's leg sustained on a bramble meant the GG Bristol first aid kit got its first ever outing and - with a slight breeze - then found its way promptly into the lake. Luckily Emma was on hand and demonstrated amazing reflexes in retrieving it before it floated off to the Island.

Finally, after a group photo we all headed back to Mud Dock for a well earned warm cup of coffee,

Nice to see Liam feeeling a bit better and joining us today and great to have Deb and Paul back with us - we've really missed you guys! And 'au revoir' to Caroline as she returns to GG Sheffield to join in their 2nd birthday celebrations - hopefully see you back in Bristol very soon!