Having double and even triple checked we were definitely on for St Werb's Community Centre, its was time to get excited about counting cutlery for the Festive Friends event. Oh, and wrapping Christmas gifts.

It was a great first task for https://www.thecomedybox.co.uk/site/301.asp?catID=2508 to get stuck in to, with Ousmane proving his photography skills weren't a one-off last week.

As the runners sped (faster than the walkers) off across town, the walkers maximised their chat time on a delightfully dry evening, past the Christmas Fair in Castle Park and many-a group enjoying the evening.

Harsheh has developed a new skill of getting ins huge number of the photos, whilst Becky shared that attaching lengths of sticky tape to a technical T-shirt is a fabulous storage tactic as they peel back off wherever your ready for them, no fluff included!

The cutlery was speedily counted with Carolineon Quality Control to ensure no soup spoons were mixed in with the dessert spoons before moving on to ensure every price sticker was removed pre-wrapping.

The team effort of cutting paper and tape and wrapping the gifts, with only Richard B managing to make a parcel look rude, was a veritable hive of activity and soon the trays of unwrapped gifts were trays of festively wrapped ones.

The walkers had a head-start but soon saw the runners ahead of then at a road crossing enabling most of the runners to have already ordered at the bar and arranged a big enough table for us to enjoy the treat of mince pies from Richard B.

That was a great evening, shall we so it all again next week? Fewer* parcels to wrap though. *None.

Sooo, not quite according to plan as (again) the confirmed task materials weren't at the venue, and the rain was torrential, so GoodGym Bristol turned all resourceful and found their way to an indoor venue (that may have sold alcoholic drinks as well as hot ones) and Ed saved the day by having quiz sheets and pens in his backpack. OK, they were supposed to be for his colleagues the next day but our needs were greater and Ed could always print some more off the next morning!

Leaflets. Predominantly made of paper. A cornucopia of words and images designed to elicit a response from those that receive them.

This evening we were delivering these bundles of papery joy to the denizens of St Werburghs. Splitting into two groups we covered some of the local roads. The leaflets needing several folds to go through some of the trickier letter boxes. It wasn't long before we ran out of leaflets and we were done. Weeding anyone?

For fans of road names these are the ones we did:

Horley rd.
Sandbed rd.
Tyne st.
Cleave st (evens).
2/3 Mogg Street to 31 odd, 18 even.

Until next time...

It was great to have Joshua finally able to join us after two inner tube incidents the previous two weeks - welcome, melon specialist!

We were due to be helping the the preparations for St Werburgh's Community Centre's Party in the Park but they weren't as far forward in the planning as they'd hoped so instead we tidied around the building and watered the plants plus testing the really-quite-narrow slide. The plant room itself was found but kept safe...

This is one of our longer walk/runs, so it was soon time for the walking group to set off, managing to get to Castle Park before the runners caught up, allowing a photo opportunity of the runners feeling the need to keep running uphill - very impressive.

Leaflets promoting the Party in the Park were distributed to shops on the way back with some more left with GoodGym locals to drop into more places over the next couple of days.

Back at Workout, we returned to last week's thrilling game of "guess Mariannes middle names" relying on the underrated strategy of knowing the last letter was in the second half if the alphabet. We eventually succeeded, but we're keeping it a secret. One middle name to go, the excitement is already at fever pitch.

Beating the impending heatwave (number 3 of 2025), we gathered in the shade at Workout (except Roddy who was determined to stand in the evening sun) and set off in two group - the runners with Richard now as a fully-fledged Fitness Leader (taking charge of the requisite First Aid Kit) and the walkers where no-one's really in charge and conversations are many and varied.

We had a plan, we knew we were preparing table cloths and decorations for the Festive Friends lunch on Friday, and watering the planters that were very dry. Except none of the decorations material shad been left out, so we kept ourselves busy with watering and weeding the edges of the building and front/side walls so he outside would look lovely for the Festive Friends. At least there wasn't a big pile of bunting to untangle!

There are planters of herbs and many fruits - a fig tree that's looking amazing (note to self - ensure we have a visit in 5 or 6 weeks' time when they should be ripening nicely), raspberries, gooseberries and wineberries where scientific sampling was carried out.

Then the Top Excitement of the evening overshadowed all other finding, conversations and puns as a little hedgehog was spotted and we ensured it found a quiet, shady spot to curl up. I say ensured, when we went back to check it had found itself a good temporary spot, but we're happy to take the credit as we COULD have helped if it had been needed.

We discussed a fitness session as the foot/cycle bridge is quite high, steps and slopes so lends itself, if only there'd not been an impending heatwave, and the pollution levels from the motorway below are possibly not ideal...

Soon we were climbing and descending the bridge just the once on our way back to Workout where it was the perfect evening for sitting out on the terrace.

Fantastic GoodGymming, Bristol!

Return to bunting tidying upping was the done thing this evening. For Clown School lovers, and who isn't?, it's back on in St Werburghs! We made short work of the task, despite a lack of string and the kitchen being the hottest place imaginable to stand in for half an hour of bunting rustling. The biggest news of the day was this coming Monday, is National Richard Day, so Happy Richard Day to all who celebrate a d we look forward to the cakes Richard B said he will bring on Tuesday!