As experienced GG litter pickers, we're used to seeing every shiny thing in the grass as potential rubbish to be added to our bags, but this was not the case today. Berry Maze volunteers had hidden lots of eggs and goodies amongst the greenery prior to our arrival. We let these be and instead picked up our edgers and tidied one of the maze's paths, pulling out sod in some sections and planting it in others that were looking bare. The result was a neater path and another widened path.

It was a West Country bonanza and international extravaganza today as GoodGym Bristol, Bath and Cardiff joined forces as a GoodGym BBC to hit the streets and do some good.

It was great to welcome Lady Steph of GoodGym Bath and GoodGym's Princes and Princesses of Wales - Ben, Mikey, Lucy, Aimee, together with Ben's sister, Dee (now residing in Bristol) who had come along for her first GoodGym run.

Todays task was a return to the Malago Greenway to continue our work with Raluca and her band of volunteers as they work towards developing a Berry Maze on a plot of land that was rather unloved and originally covered in brambles and litter. So far we have been helping to clear the area of litter and debris, rocks and slabs and the idea today was to pop along and help to spread some mulch to the pathways of the maze.

Enjoying a leisurely and chatty morning run out to our destination, with Ben out front snapping some action shots as we headed along the greenway, we arrived to find the area largely transformed from when we had first become involved on the project, although it was clear that there was still much to do before we could start to spread the mulch.

Having cleared the ground of slabs two weeks ago so that this could be ploughed, and then going back last Tuesday to clear some more rocks that the plough had dug up, another problem had been discovered - Roots! And lots of them!

Some had been brought to the surface, whilst others were deep rooted so and sos, and so we were needed to help clear these before the mulching could commence.

Thankfully, with our larger than normal sized Saturday number and having an hour to spend on the task, we not only got a lot of the evil roots up and managed to smooth out some of the pathways, but we were also able to start barrowing across some of the mulch to spread across the pathways but also some gravel that was needed at the top end of the huge concrete slab within the maze.

There is still much to be done and it is evident that our help here is invaluable, so much so that we are planning to send a small party of runners over on Tuesday evening to provide some further assistance, which will be much appreciated.

Heading back to town, it seemed that the pace was a little to leisurely for some as Ben and Matt battled out a sprint across Bristol Bridge and took those wanting to up their pace at a faster lick back to base.

It was fabulous to see so many of you come and join in the fun today, it made such a difference on such a big project and it'll be brilliant to see the finished version when this is finally completed - thank you to everyone who came, whether local or travelling from further afield, I know it is much appreciated.

And many thanks to Chris and Steph for backmarking.

See you all again soon!

A double whammy tonight as both our task and run leader had to be substituted at the very last minute.

Our trainer Gary was unwell so he was unable to join us for his penultimate Bristol run. (There were some rumours that he just needed the extra time to put the finishing touches to his fancy dress costume for his farewell session next week).

Not only that, but our original task had been canceled! Fortunately, the emergency red GG Bristol phone had rung just hours earlier with an urgent request for help down at the Malago Greenway Berry Maze. The project (which we visited just last weekend) had run into difficulties after ploughing had revealed a veritable mine field of rubble that was sure to take out the rotivator when it arrived later in the week and put paid to the Mock A Maze day planned this Saturday.

Naturally we jumped at the chance to help out - our members love nothing more than to help a project in need - so we headed out along the Malago Greenway and got stuck in moving as many rocks as possible out of the soil and into a pile. Meanwhile Tom, Ian, Alex, Andrew and Richard were on wheelbarrow and refuse sack duty moving the pile into a location for collection by a skip.

Everyone worked hard collecting up rubble and rubbish. As is often the case we made some interesting discoveries - a shoe, an old orangina bottle and indeed it appeared that on this occasion that we had discovered an ancient car burial site as first Liam uncovered a tyre and then Rachel located a steering wheel in amongst all the dirt.

By the time we were due to leave we had uncovered most of the rocks so Mock a Maze should be able to go ahead!

Thanks everyone for adapting so willingly to the changed plan. Raluca was really grateful for our help and this was one of those occasions when it's difficult to see who else could have done all that manual labour at such short notice. You all rock!

Our work finished, we returned to base and then headed off to our monthly eats. A really great turnout at the meal tonight (as you can see on the selfie!) - lovely to have you all along both at the task and at the restaurant afterwards!

Thanks to Dave for leading the second group and to my back markers Alex and Clo. Thanks also to Caroline, Richard and Jack for the glove run!

Welcome also to new runners Emma and Richard

Don't forget it's (optional) fancy dress next week for Gary's last run. No theme, the more random the better!

It was a peach of a morning in more ways than one as the fourteen of us (every single one in a red GG shirt) gathered, warmed up and set off on our run.

After a last minute request we dropped off Irena, Hannah and Andrew in Victoria Park, to help Gav of the Victoria Park Action Group carry out some running repairs to the Willow Tunnel, which we had helped to build last year. Big thanks to Will for locating the tunnel for us!

The rest of us headed across the park and out onto the Malago Greenway down to the Novers Hill end where we were greeted by lovely Raluca and her band of volunteers who continue to develop the area with the aim of building a Berry Maze - an unique maze made out of berry plants, from the humble blackberry to the exciting jostaberry, designed by the children from the local school, built solely by volunteers, ready for the whole community to pick and use instead of an overgrown field of weeds. A natural hub for community events and an awesome play area. All in one!

Today's job was to pick litter where the brambles had been cleared, including the removal of slabs and rocks embedded in the ground, these being placed on a giant slab before being taken away in wheelbarrows. This is so that the area can be ploughed next week.

We hi-vizzed up, armed ourselves with litter pickers and off we went, scouring the area for anything that might clog up the plough.

Along the way we were assisted by a plump little dog who couldn't quite make up his mind if he wanted to lick us or eat us, but he was enthusiastic to say the least!

Needless to say, we cleared lots, filled loads of rubbish sacks and helped get the area ready for the next phase. We'll be back again soon to help with some mulch spreading (yay!) in a couple of weeks and may also come back again after that to place and fill some planters (double yay!).

We were fantastically looked after by Raluca who had provided bottles of water and an array of fruit, including some fabulous looking donut peaches, plums and bananas - yum!yum!

Then it was bye to Raluca and all the slabs, great and small, and we headed back to the park to pick up the "Willow Three" who had done a brilliant job on the tunnel, before trotting back for a warm down and lunch (although cake seemed to be a very popular choice this week).

It was great that we were able to help out Gav in Victoria Park, as well as being able to do justice to the main task, so thanks to all of you for coming along.

Big thanks to Charlene for backmarking today too.

See you soon!

13 runners ran 6k along the Malago Greenway to help with a tidy up of the area

Meeting at Roll For The Soul with a few now opting for a quick coffee before the off, we welcomed along Sophie who was joining us for the first time today.

After warming up in usual West Country style - although today we were shooing in slow-worms! - and an introduction to what was awaiting us today 12 of us headed off towards Bedminster. Having had so many tasks in Victoria Park recently, I inadvertently took us on a little detour, but most agreed this was a nicer route and we were soon back on track. We picked up Nick Baker along the way so you could say that our dozen became a Baker’s Dozen!

Approaching the meeting point for the task, you could actually hear the cheers as the red and black shirts (quite a lot of black shirts today) headed along the Malago Greenway, where we were greeted by our host, the lovely Raluca, who outlined the task to us and gave a thorough health and safety briefing as well as some snazzy Hi Viz to wear!

We were asked to head down a track just on the other side of the river where we split into two groups, starting at different ends of the track.

One group got busy, clearing out the litter from an area of bushes and trees and had soon filled lots of bin bags with all sorts of rubbish including a wok and a parasol.

The other group was somewhat more stationary, discovering an area that had not only been the victim of flytipping, but was also overgrown with some very thorny brambles. Managing to locate some spades to hack at the thorny shield, we managed to pull out a slide from the undergrowth which acted as a great shute to drop the objects that needed to be cleared down. These included a fence, lots of plastic boxes and a clothes line (one of those whirlygig things).

With time running out we managed to fill up some wheelbarrows (don’t tell Paul B!) and get all the rubbish to a collection point at the end of one section of the Greenway.

Smashing the task in an hour we were richly rewarded with donuts, cookies, fruit and sweeties before the usual group shot, a thanks and goodbye with Raluca, before heading back to base (thanks to Will for dashing back to return the wheelbarrow before we left).

There, in true democratic style, we had three puns to put to a vote:

Thorn In My Slide

Who’s Clothes Line Is It Anyway?

Wok me up for malago-go

The winner by a landslide was your report title for today – just as well as we really didn’t want a hung pun today!

We wished good luck to all those taking part for Bristol in the GG Olympics today, to Deb, Paul and Dave at the Bradley Stoke 10k, Mel at Chew Valley 10k and Alice who is taking on the Bristol Olympic Distance Triathlon tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone for coming along today. To Richard for the extra photos and to Chris and David for running with Sophie on her first adventure with us – hope you enjoyed it Sophie!

Hope to see you all soon.