This evening we returned to Boundry Brook Nature Reserve to do some woodland clearing.

After admiring the new mural outside the reserve we headed in to be greeted by the lovely Helen. Our tasks this evening involved clearing up silver birch logs from some recent tree felling, creating brush piles with smaller branches and generally doing a bit if a spruce and tidy of a couple of clearings.

It was a gorgeous evening and we set to work, rescuing earwigs and snails as we worked and enjoying the glowing evening light.

After an hour and a bit if steady work we had assembled a good stack of silver birch logs, debated whether we'd be any good a caber tossing and created a MASSIVE brush pile, slightly trapping John and Fred as a result!

After checking on the path to the bird-hide which we helped to create last year, we headed off to do our various different forms of exercise; the goodgymers had a riverside run and Helen was due at a Morris Dancing session. GLORIOUS!

What a lovely day to be out on the river!

Today we teamed up with the Falcon Boat Club to clean up the river and river banks between Donnington Bridge and Heyford Hill ring road bridge. We've worked together to clear litter from the river many times now, so we know we always recover a big haul, but it still surprises us every time JUST how much stuff we pull out of the river and off the banks!

Today was no different, with the canoe teams getting creative to float a drowned moped back to base, 2 trollies wheeled up to the road from under the bridge, and many many bottles and cans picked up. In sartorial news, the garment of the day was shoes - we found sliders, a pair of trainers, and several socks to go with them - but honorable mentions go to the buried coat and the pair of shorts.

Great work once again team - that was a brilliant amount of litter cleared up.

Welcome to GoodGym to all our new GoodGymers today: Adam, Dima, Muireann, Nazanin, Daniel, Deb, and Carmen!

We usually take the opportunity of the darker winter months to gradually work our way around the food bank giving it a thorough clean. We haven't been able to fit in with the food bank schedule for a couple of months, but with ITV due to film there tomorrow, tonight the diary was cleared for us to do an emergency clean.

We swept, we mopped, we wiped, we dusted. We sorted expired food, we threw out an unmentionable amount of black bananas, we even scraped food off the walls. Within an hour the whole place was looking much more camera ready.

Welcome to GoodGym James!

Last night we split into walking and running groups to pin up posters and distribute bookmarks for the charity "From Me to You". We ran and walked from East to West pinning up posters in libraries, cafes and community centres.

Through letter writing workshops, and hints & tips on how to reach out to family and friends, 'From Me to You' charity aim to reduce the social isolation and loneliness so often associated with cancer. Writers, from all over the world, send in their letters, which are then distributed to those most in need. 'From me to You' work with partners - hospitals, cancer centres and fellow charities - as well as sending letters directly to people’s homes, which anyone can request whenever a boost is needed.

Our intrepid team of Quizzers ventured to the Dodo Pub's newest Oxford venue, the Slow and Steady. The quiz followed the usual word patterns, palindromic answers, a music round, and a picture round. The bonus challenge to create a campaign post for a new political party revealed some hidden artistic talents and a dab hands at the strategic use of glitter. Unfortunately the whole thing took over three hours to finish, and no amount of pizza and Ben's birthday cake could make a night bus look appealing. But, I am reliably informed by the hardy few who toughed it out that we finished in a very respectable 3rd place.

There is some interest in getting a team together to tackle Puzzled Pint (https://puzzledpint.org/city/oxford-uk/) but it isn't bookable so people will need to solve the riddle to find the location and chance it.

Yesterday we made a welcome return to Kate's Place. It was lovely to see it so well established given that we have been involved since it's early days. We did a variety if tasks including hedge trimming, raking leaves, and sowing yellow rattle seeds, then warmed up over a cuppa on Flo's cafe.