A busy night for Goodgym Portsmouth this evening as we had 2 group runs taking place. A huge welcome to Doug who joined us this evening for his first group run to North End Baptist church. Make sure you give him a cheer. Katie, Doug and Jo ran up to the church from our meeting point and we met Tony there who had cycled. The church has a Christmas Fete and show on this weekend and we were asked to help clean up the outside of the church by pulling up all the weeds and clearing away any rubbish that had been dropped. The outside looked a lot cleaner and tidier once we'd finished. Although there weren't many of us the job didn't take too long and we were soon wrapping up warm and running back home.

Remember next week is our last group run until the new year, you can sign up here. We do have a lot of community missions going on over the festive period which you can see here.

Today's task was discovered by Judy but unfortunately she had to miss out on completing it as she's hurt her back. We wish her a speedy recovery.

So it was down to Jo and I to tackle the weeds in the courtyard hidden at the back of the church hall. I actually remembered to take a "before" photo before we got going, starting at opposite ends of the weed-ridden area. Jo found a massive caterpillar 🐛 and saved him/her by transferring it to the tree that was growing over the wall. Shortly after the rescue, Catherine popped her head out of the door to offer us a slice of Colin Caterpillar cake... And of course we had to say yes, hiding the sliced up chocolate version from the one we'd saved!

One hour later, the courtyard was rid of weeds and debris, the chairs were all stacked and 3 bags were full (2 x green waste, 1 x rubbish). The courtyard is now clear and the young people from the church will be painting and decorating it at some point in the future.

Jo ran home and I had a wind assisted cycle back to my house!