We usually try to get to West Oxford for a litter pick early in the year, and despite the ongoing challenges of accessing the Botley Road, we headed there last night for a clean up.

We split into 3 groups and allowed ourselves an hour to blitz the trash. Given the cold weather we found a surprising amount of discarded clothing (wouldn't you notice that you'd left your coat on the cemetery gate?!), as well as a bags full of the usual suspects (cans, bottles), and more unusual items (a whole block of cheese, part of a car bumper, MANY Christmas trees, a French dictionary).

All in all, a good amount of rubbish got picked and bagged, leaving the area looking a little more loved.

Welcome to GoodGym James!

Mrs H had a lovely Christmas at her granddaughter's house. She said the best thing is just to have somebody else cook you a meal! I would agree with that!

Between Christmas and New Year the Cherwell Larder work to save tonnes of food waste from ending up in landfill. They take van loads of supermarket surplus almost every day and distribute it to the community from their Kidlington base.

Our GoodGym quartet unloaded vans, stacked food, sorted the good clementines from the mouldy ones, and generally turned our hands to a bit of everything!

I didn't stay long as Mrs H had family round, but we exchanged Christmas cards and good wishes for the New Year :)

Botley School have had 6 bulk bags of sand sitting in their playground since September. It needed to be shovelled and barrowed through to the playground sand pits, but they lacked the team to do it.

Enter GoodGym!

In an hour and a half we had all the sand moved into the sand pits and raked to a very satisfying smooth surface. Great work everyone :-)