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 warm and balmy night (or should that be barmy?) in Brizzle when 30 runners met to take on two tasks spanning the length of the city centre. After meeting and running through some warm ups we split into two teams. Dave's team headed to the Bedminster Patchwork Project to help tidy their South Street patch. My team we more inclined to go further and headed up to the Golden Hill Community Garden (or Golden Balls as I called it in the warm up) to promote their Harvest Fair on the 9th September.

Team Golden Balls

With my trusty back marker Nick team Golden Balls rolled through the streets and really shined when it came to tackling the hills. When we arrived at the community garden we were met by Clare. She gave us an introduction to the great work that the farm do offering people from all walks of life the opportunity to try their hand at gardening. To fundraise for their work they are having a Harvest Fair on Saturday 9th September. We will also be heading back their to help on the day too. We split into 5 groups, 4 flyering the nearby streets and 2 putting up posters to grab the attention of the passers by. Maps were handed out and instructions given before everyone took on the task. Due to long run their and back the time we had was short but that didn't seem tomato to these keen runner beans.

After 15 minutes most of the groups returned and were given a tour of the garden before we left. One group remained AWOL. Neil and Georgina were far too keen and wanted to put up all of the posters they could. Eventually we were all back together and ran back down the hill to Vivo for a stretch off.

The Patchwork Plummers

Dave's Patchwork Plummers fig-ured a shorter run would be a nice option. Taking a fine nine runners over to Bedminster we met up with the lovely Laura from the Patchwork Group, for the second week running, this time on South Street to help tidy up a small garden of land just on the approach to North Street.

Here we were greeted with a fig tree, plum tree, Fat Hen weeds and some bushes to trim plus some grass to cut. A pair of shears were in great demand with Petra tending to the grass, Guido tackling some weeds and Alice (combining shears and loppers, such a pro!) on bush duty.

Ed, Molly, Roanna (a combination of her mother and father's names apparently), Gulnara and Mel made a fine job of clearing the weeds and secateuring (?) the bushes, before we sampled the plums which in the main were a little sour for our liking but Petra seemed to enjoy them as she came back with a stash!

Our shorter run gave us more time on the task and so managed to leave the garden looking much nicer and neater than it had been when we arrived.

Massive well done to everyone who ran along tonight. It was warm, it was tough but you all delivered.

A South Bristol extravanganza today as a dozen runners toured Bedminster and the surrounding area to deliver packs and flyers for Lifecycle.

Meeting at Roll For The Soul, we welcomed Jacob and Gulnara to the group for their first GoodGym experience, and Neil kindly outlined the work that Lifecycle do.

Our task today was to deliver promotional packs for Lifecycle to community and sports centres, GP surgeries and libraries around South Bristol and drop off flyers to cafes, shops and bars along North Street in Bedminster.

David H, David S, Sarah and Dom opted for the longer distance option by heading out along the Malago Greenway to deliver packs around Knowle West, doing us proud despite the distraction of blackberries heading through the Novers Hill area.

Paul, Neil and Nick headed through Redcliffe over to the Windmill Hill area and beyond to St Johns Lane, delivering packs along the way before dropping back down to North Street to deliver flyers.

Kait, Petra, Jacob, Gulnara and myself headed to Southville and on to Bedminster, taking a tour of a number of parks around the area and admiring a lot of areas where we have have done GoodGym tasks in the past. Job done the team then headed down the other end of North Street for some flyer delivery.

Managing to regroup around West Street, the whole gang then headed back for base, with Paul leading us on a longer and more scenic journey home.

This was great teamwork today and great to see that we could manage to set off in three different groups, get the task done and still meet up to run back together. Thank you everyone!

Back at base we congratulated David S for completing his 50th good deed today - nice one!

A reminder that we have tasks on Tuesday with Growing Support and next Saturday with Incredible Edible - two of our favourite groups to work with. There is also a Tuesday eats social after the run.

Many thanks and see you all again soon!