Due to a mass woodchip delivery, there was far less patio shuffling and a lot more weed pulling!

We helped Brian the Caretaker dig up brambles, nettles, tomato plants and numerous other weeds to make space for a more groomed garden area outside the classroom windows.

We learnt a lot more about Aoife's dislike of creepy crawlies. There was no avoiding the critters this evening, from worms and caterpillars to spiders and earwigs, it was basically a David Attenborough Documentary.

Brian also showed us the Wild Area, which GoodGym helped get started. It is looking fantastic, this is such an amazing learning space for the children.

In typical GoodGym style, we had to have a little play on the exercise equipment before we left!

We also got to see Val's 200 Deeds Shirt and Dave's 100 Wings.

Big thanks to Katie for organising this task and taking some photos. A couple of snaps from Aoife too of Angela and Katie's excellent root removal service. Unfortunately my phone died before it saved our group photo so please use your imagination for that one!

It was great to see our young GoodGymer in training tonight, Betsy, who had persuaded Sam to let her stay up late to help out in her school garden. They did an excellent job of sweeping the leaves off the pond decking. Let's hope Betsy keeps her promise of getting up in the morning for breakfast with no arguments! 🤞

Val gave the pampas grass a swinging haircut and Judy impressed us all with a left handed litter pick.

Julie took the Canadian contingent to 2, joining us after a hectic day at work while Tony celebrated his last day of school holidays in a school and with his 2nd lot of ivy removal after doing the same for his dad earlier this afternoon.

India and Jo were also battling the ivy and finding shoes, balls and other things that the foxes had brought in.

Excellent work by everyone and Nicky was very thankful for everything we'd helped out with.

4 years ago we visited the wild area at St Jude's School and we were back tonight.

We met up at Southsea Medical Centre which had the added bonus of meaning we caught up with the Goodgymers there before we set off on our run.

The school have done loads of work on the wild area. We were helping cut back the overgrown bushes, clear pathways and dig over some of the flower beds.

We had a look at the pond but couldn't see any evidence of the frogs spotted earlier in the year 🐸

Lucy and Rachel found the most treasure in the form of many spoons, a cauldron and a shiny rock. All we needed was eye of newt and we'd have been all set for spell weaving.

Puns during the evening included many in relation to spooning and an accidental pun about a backlog of wood waiting to be added to the natural fence!

Good work all round, I'm sure we'll be back again soon.

Samantha, Betsy, Lynn and Katie ran to St Jude's primary school to help them tame their wild area. We attacked the brambles and ivy with gusto to clear the pond area. Betsy and Samantha used their bug spotting skills to find snails, beetles, woodlice and frogs whilst Lynn used her Ecologist super powers to help the creatures we found and share her knowledge with the eager crowd of excited children (and grown ups). It was a morning of high drama that saw a newt being rescued and rehomed, woodlice giving birth, a bee rescued from drowning, huge spiders, more frogs than we could count and a wonderful reminder of the circle of life as we witnessed a small frog devour a large worm like a spaghetti brunch! We were really excited about restoring this huge wild nature area for the children to use. I am sure this won't be the last Goodgym mission to the wild area.

First up, a warm GoodGym Portsmouth welcome to first timers Cheryl and Megan who joined us tonight and welcome back to Jane on her second week.

Tonight was a group run of two halves (although not exact halves!) with the walking group heading to MAKE to finish off the paint work and the longer option of a run to St Jude's to help out the teachers with all sorts of jobs. So there are two parts to the run report tonight, both with their own puns...

MAKEing our mark! by Val

6 GG’s walked to MAKE to finish off glossing 2 doors and painting the floor. There was a workshop going on so we kept the noise level down. Before long most of us had paint covered hands and we had the usual 'oops just trod in wet paint'. Manuel tried on a Hulk mask, he looked great ha ha, and Tracey bought the last 2 comedy bums (this makes more sense if you have seen this report)!! Hilarious. Jane and Catherine painted floors with Tracey and Manuel. Catherine demonstrated some impressive lunge skills whilst painting. Maxine and I finished off the glossing.

Hey Jude / plastic fantastic / put a lid on it

The remaining 19 runners headed down to St Judes where the headteacher met us and divided us into "horticulture" (Rosie & Lynn); artistic (Angela & Rachel), happy up a ladder (Michael, Joe & Fionn) and crafty (the rest!).

Rosie & Lynn planted up the large planter outside the school just as the rain started so got double bonus points for doing a cold task while everyone else headed inside. Angela & Rachel were painting the tree trunk and branches onto the celebration of pride tree made from recycled bottle tops. Team Pompey Uni managed to resist the temptation of the pubs and clubs on the run down and ended up climbing ladders to screw in some hooks & hang the massive new RE banner which features in the back of our group photo.

The crafty group got to use glue guns (caution, very hot glue.... mentioning no names!) to finish off the kitchen foil squid and recycled bottle tops blue whale for the sea inspired display. They looked amazing. Sadly we can't take the credit for the ideas but we definitely helped bring it to life.

We also got to meet a very cute whippet puppy called Dash. Yey, a dog on a task - it's the dream right? There was also a small doodle dog hanging around reception who didn't get his photo taken for the run report!

GoodGym-ima puddle duck

On the way home the rain was really coming down. Michael and I were motivated to keep going with the thought of what was on the menu for dinner tonight (midweek roast & enchiladas respectively) whilst Rosie was busy finding every single puddle on the route back and getting her feet nice and wet - she christened herself GoodGymima puddle duck so please feel free to address her as this in the future. Tony and Sam did sterling work as the back markers and we all made it back to base a lot wetter than when we left!

Coming up

As promised, a round up of what's coming up: tomorrow we need a few more painters at SSJ, preferably at least one who's tall and/or happy up a ladder. On Friday Rachel is leading a run on the seafront (hopefully drier than tonight) and next week we are on another school trip, this time to St Swithuns (where 2 rogues tried to run off to tonight, luckily the back markers were on it!).

Bookmark this page and you can always see what's coming up - Maura is going to be organising a Sunday community mission soon so keep an eye out for that one!

Hope you all have a lovely week and I will see you next week for more fun and games (& hopefully less rain!).

Yep, that's right, we were out again tonight for another good deed. This time we visited St Jude's primary school to help tackle the ivy and brambles that had taken over some of the flower beds. There was also a large planter that needed emptying ready for a new crop.

We split into two teams of 3 and got stuck into the 2 areas. Judy was very prepared and had even brought her own tools.

Our hard work was rewarded with Maxine's delicious millionaire shortbread, she wins this week's star baker. 🌟