13 wonderful runners headed to the Manor Woods Valley to help out the Malago Valley Conservation Group in dealing with a thorny issue.

This morning we welcomed Ned and Kevin to the group and welcomed back Petra after a year away from GoodGym, as we gathered at Roll For The Soul for one of our longer runs and a new task for us.

After warming up we set off towards Redcliffe, Bedminster and beyond as we headed up the Malago Greenway on a nice gentle, chatty run, picking up Fi along the way.

Arriving at the edge of the Manor Woods Valley, we were greeted by Martin, our host for the task who made the 300 metre remaining jog to the task ridiculously easy in his work boots, where he explained todays task to us. It was all about dealing with spiky stuff clearing an area covered in brambles, dogwood, hawthorn and blackthorn to name a few, in an attempt to access a secret orchard within the woods.

Martin had prepared for our arrival brilliantly providing us with shears and loppers to carry out the task with plenty to go round for everyone. He'd even arranged a brief rain shower to cool us down after our run across town - nice!

Splitting into 2 groups, Linlu, Petra, Kevin, Lindsey and Fi joined the other volunteers and got stuck into cutting back and clearing brambles, whilst Kait, Maria, Liam, Jack, David, Caroline and Ned chose the thorny option further down the track.

Maria discovered some sloe berries on a hawthorn bush, which we thought might be quite nice to harvest and set up a GoodGin distillery!

Lots of work mixed with lots of chat saw the hour we were on the task fly-by and it was a struggle to get the team to put down their tools and step away from the spiky enemy - these are always difficult tasks to leave and it'll be great to go back and do some more soon.

We headed out past a "Rag Tree" which Martin explained was Hawthorn onto which people with illnesses tie rags. The idea is that as the hawthorn withers so their illness disappears. Then it was down a lovely path through the woods before setting off back to town.

It was a warm run back but everyone ran really well with most stopping for a lovely bite to eat after cooling down with stretches.

Thanks to everyone for coming along and to David backmarking today!

New task, nice work, happy days!