The missing ingredient

Unfortunately, the weekend left things in a bit of a pickle at Baggator (water + electricity is not a good mix and they had to shut the Pickle Factory for a few days to make everything safe again). Therefore, we will be rearranging to go and help them on a new date.

Over the hill

Not to fear! GoodGym Bristol are never short of a Tuesday night way to do good. Penny Brohn are organising their annual Stomp fundraising walk from Bristol to Pill and they are spreading the word about the opportunity to take part in this beautiful walk while raising money for such a good cause on 13th October. Ian from Penny Brohn delivered me leaflets by the boxful for this and the GoodGymers of Bristol are more than happy to get their legs moving between the letterboxes to help.

They were less happy about the hills I introduced into the session to spice up the run between the letterboxes. After the continued hilarity of GoodGymers not managing to warm-up by rotating their arms in different directions simultaneously, we started off on a lovely traffic-free run along the harbourside to get to our first hill. Here began an hour's zig-zagging run of letterboxes, hills, leaflets and the additional good deed task of finding over-zealous leafleters who are so dedicated to Penny Brohn's cause (or confused by Bristol's twisting streets) that they become 'temporarily misplaced'.

Hobble-nob

Nevertheless, all of the members of the group had soon managed to hand out hundreds of leaflets around the area, and clocked up their miles and elevation while they did so. They also did an impressive hill sprint up Constitution Hill (with it's 1:6 gradient) with only the promise of it having deserved a chocolate-covered hob-nob.

What an impressive effort by everyone who joined us tonight, especially Freddie, Hannah and Fiona who joined us for the first time. I know Ian and his team at Penny Brohn will be delighted with all of your work!

On this adventurous Tuesday, we ventured our way (on a quick-paced, bike dodging, cycle path route) to Felix Road Adventure Playground to whip it up ahead of the looming summer holidays this weekend.

The playground is a safe space for all of the children in the local area. All of the children who attend during the holidays receive a hot meal, which is not always something they can access at home. The playground has been owned as a charity for the past 5 years and, over that time, the group has united different communities from across this varied area over the playground gates.

Zoe and Mandy from Felix Road met us and were delighted to set us into tasks across the huge playground. One group set off on a special leafleting mission to spread the word as far and wide as they could about the range of activities coming up for children over the summer holidays. They did a wonderful job - not only did they get rid of a weighty bag of leaflets, they had their own adventure, venturing their way through the high rises of Easton.

After the hot spell we have had over the past months, the playground's grass was looking pretty dead. A team of expert water-ers got on the task, and managed to water all of the masses of grass and plants across the whole playground to coax it back to life (putting on some impressive gun shows while they did so (ahem, Caroline)).

Meanwhile, the rest of the group armed themselves with gloves and various levels of sharp and blunt equipment to try and get rid of the nettles and brambles invading the Conservation Area and the back of the playground. With minimal blades to hep, the group still did a very impressive job of clearing the areas, and really helped get the grounds ready for the children to use.

Last but not least, Gary proved himself on a one-man mowing mission, featuring lawnmower hill-reps.

The time went too quickly (especially the part when we could climb on the playground), but the team were really pleased with the work we got done and have asked us to come back and help again when the summer programme finishes. And next time, we will spend more time on the climbing frame...

Big thanks to Alex for her pun of the week! Kudos to you.