On a wet and windy Wednesday evening, 3 Goodgymers donned their waders and waterproofs to help Friends of Christchurch Gardens with a litter pick around the gardens.

Having abandoned ship on our group run due to the rivers of water running along the streets, we decided to meet at this evening's task so that everyone could dress in sensible waterproof clothing. Allan appeared to have missed the memo and bravely still arrived in shorts! Well, legs are waterproof I guess...

We met with Alison, Jenny and Paul from the Friends group upon arrival at the gardens and got to work with hunting out the litter. Headtorches were an essential in the dark but even with headtorches, it was still challenging to tell the difference between shiny wet leaves and bits of rubbish. The highlight of the haul this evening was a beautiful sparkly bow!

With a full bag of rubbish collected we said our goodbyes and headed off to get dry and warm. Fingers crossed next time we support Friends of Christchurch Gardens we will have slightly better weather - third time lucky!

2 Goodgymers donned their raincoats and tested out their (very rusty) tennis skills in support of Friends of Christchurch Gardens' free tennis coaching morning and litter pick.

Upon arrival the other volunteers were busy setting up the much needed gazebo, but the rain did not dampen anyone's spirits and there were smiles all around. With chairs collected and carried over from nearby Holy Trinity Church we were ready to go.

In a bid to entice some tennis enthusiasts to brave the weather, Nigel and Katherine grabbed some racquets and had a knock around on the courts. Put to shame by the far superior skills and enthusiasm of Safiyeh who arrived for the tennis coaching session, we decided to turn our attention to clearing the courts of what were now wet and slippery leaves, as well as trying our hand at being ball people and helping to keep the ball buckets topped up.

After a very welcome hot drink from Esther, we felt re-energised to help out with the Friends' litter pick and decided to tackle the hot spot behind the nearby bus stop on the edge of the gardens, resulting in quite a haul of litter.

Having got a taste for it earlier, we decided to get in one last rally before collecting all the balls from the court and helping with packing away the tables, chairs, gazebo and tennis equipment. What an enjoyable way to get a bit of exercise on a soggy Saturday morning.