It was fab to welcome back Tracey for our task this evening, after a break away from GoodGym. We made our way to St Faith's, and got straight to work with litter picking, lopping and sweeping.

Tracey and The Katies took on litter picking, Our team and managed to put together the best part of a full outfit with their finds - pants, trousers, a sock and a glove, as well as coat hanger to display them all!

Team Dave were in lopping duty, tidying up the brambles and budlia round the front of the church. Dave spent as much time in the bag of cuttings as he did out of it.

Jim helped David from the church with clearing the side path. They made such a difference I didn't recognise the place when I walked back through at the end of the task.

There was quite a lot of Double Trouble tonight, especially when the we included the church volunteers too! Two Katies, two Jens and in impressive three Davids. We very much enjoyed some tea, squash and biscuits before heading back to FCC. And we also learned plenty about looking after snakes 🐍 - fortunately we didn't come across any in the church yard.

We had a lovely evening back at St Faith's, pulling out weeds, pruning bushes and clearing paths.

Finnuala managed to find a plant to match her tattoo, Jen managed to spark a small flame with a hoe and a garden slate and Lucy made the most of the pretty benches and scenery after a lot of hard work.

John, Jen and Wendy-Mae were superb hosts, providing guidance, kneeling pads and delicious cold drinks to rejuvenate us after our efforts.

We were back at St Faith's this evening after a long break and the team seemed pleased to have us back!

Rodney, Eleanor and Judy tackled the litter around the site, finding a number of interesting items, including an abandoned handbag.

The rest of the squad battled the unforgiving bindweed, budlia and general weeds. Two massive Hippo bags were filled in just under an hour. Myself and Dave discovered a chonky wee toad whilst bagging up cuttings, leading to probably the highest pitched squeak I've ever made.

We enjoyed a lovely cup of tea and some biscuits courtesy of Jenny and John at the end of the visit. What a lovely evening out!

Tonight we had three jobs:

• clean the windows so that Arundel Court School's Easter art work can be displayed
• pull up bindweed to continue the everlasting battle (which I think we're winning!)
• collect and dispose of the litter that had been gifted to the bushes and flowerbeds around the church

We all split into 3 groups to complete the jobs and catch up with each others' news.

Once the jobs were done, we were rewarded for our efforts with tea/coffee, hot sausage rolls and a selection of chocolate biscuits, they know how to keep us coming back!!

Thanks to Tracey for the run report title which is a hymn title so seemed appropriate. However, we have to apologise to Rich who isn't a fan of that particular song!

A BIG welcome back to Maxine, lovely to see you and we send you all our best for your wedding... Although we're hoping to get a hen run / litter pick in before the big day. Watch the website / WhatsApp for details!

Tonight we battled the bindweed & other weeds, got to make lots of hoe jokes and picked up various cans and other litter from the flowerbed. Judy warmed herself up after her sea swim by doing the rounds with the bin bag.

Catherine did an excellent job of photos whilst tidying the bigger part of the gardens with Rosie, Jen, Maxine and Tracey.

We had a variety of wrapped biscuits on offer afterwards and some apples too (I can confirm these aren't an ideal pre run snack!)

Tonight 5 GoodGymers met up despite the dreary weather to litter pick, tackle some bind weed and pick up after the whirlwind that is Steve the gardener!

Katie hopped back and forth between raking up Steve's trimmings and finding litter all around, being our brilliant magpie for the evening! While the rest of us ripped bind weed from all the usual spots and filled two more large yellow bags with garden waste.

Jen & Nick had a great time tossing soil from one bag to the other, trying to even out the weight, Vicki & Nick showed excellent British politeness taking armfuls of garden waste off each other, and Vicki helped Jen with a "holy" pot for her sharp finds! No, in the end Katie took the unusable pot off her hands and found Jen something more suitable and less hole-y ;)

A tiny frog was spotted, giving Jen a fright but overall we had a relaxing evening wrapped up with the usual treats and interesting stories from the other helpers at st. Faiths. We learnt about the stone in the garden (discovered last time) and how Winchester university are their patrons, heard updates about Sue's sign language courses and Jen even bagged us some new good deeds from a passing elderly man in need of some gardening (the old man seemed smitten with Jen and even took her to go visit his garden already!)

Keep an eye out on the listings as we will most definitely be back in the near future!