Finally a break in the weather! Monday's group run had to move to Tuesday in an attempt to get dry weather as the paint was not going to stick around in the rain :)

4 Goodgymers helped paint the wood fence which enclosed the garden at the Breakthrough charity centre in Bath. This area is dedicated to those attended the charity and is designed to be a peaceful space.

We managed to get two panels completed front and back but there were many more to do. So, we'll return again in a few weeks to complete the job.

Santas little helpers arrived at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon in a secret elf packing location disclosed only hours before the task.

We were welcomed into a large room full of children's toys. Mother Christmas explained how the charity had purchased thousands of children's gift to send to over 90 wards in hospitals ready for Christmas!

Our roles varied from helping to pack the gifts, rip up cardboard, weigh parcels and sort parcels into numerical order ready for their postage labels. We also got to play jenga with cardboard and a nearby car.

We finished all our tasks in record time and wished all the charity team a very Happy Christmas.

The sun was shining, the sky was blue and the temperature was up.

Our shift started at 1545 but Emily, Tom and Helen arrived 30 minutes early to take the flow test. The other Goodgym members had their flow tests elsewhere up to 3 days before the volunteering shift.

We were welcomed to the Pavillion and shown to our positions. Mary and Lucy were placed at the waiting area. This area was super busy during this shift as the centre were giving out the Pfizer vaccine. This vaccine requires the recipient to wait for 15 minutes afterwards to ensure they have no side effects. As each member of the public left, the volunteers were required to clean the seat with anti-bacterial wipes ready for the next person.

Tom and Helen were placed in the main hall allocating visitors to waiting spots outside the vaccination booths.

Emily was placed at the staff exit and then moved to the front of the hall half way through the shift.

Steven and Rob were placed near the door. They were asked to help guide people in, read out the covid questions and take temperatures.

We finished at around 2015 and during our shift had welcomed hundreds of visitors into the centre. Well done team!

Tom, Alice and Jane joined this morning's keen-beans Rob, Helen and Jer at Bath City Farm for some bark chip shifting ahead of the farm's reopening to the public next week.

Important things first... when we'd signed up to this mission, we'd been teased with the possibility of there being newborn lambs on site, and on arrival we learnt that 5 new lambs have indeed been born over the past few days. But first work...

Our host Josh issued us each with a wheelbarrow and a shovel and pointed us to a huge pile of bark chips next to the chicken roost, which we were to load up and transfer - first over to a garden area further up the site, and then the remainder onto a grassy border which was luckily right next to the initial pile.

We made steady progress and quickly completed the first area before setting about the second with that promise of lamb cuddles getting ever closer...

As we reached the last few barrows of chips, Josh remembered to mention the other even bigger pile of bark chips further up the car park. The lambs would have to wait!

The other pile of chips needed barrowing up the hill to another area near the farm's entrance. By now at least one of us double-shift workers (yeah, me) was seriously beginning to flag - but the promise of lambs is a great motivator. I soldiered on.

We finished up, before finally the pay-off. Many, many lamb photos are attached for your enjoyment.

Afterwards, on the way back down the hill down to Twerton Jane and I also met a couple of tiny horses, and also a 7 month old husky puppy. You're jealous.