Mike joined the Friends of the Cole Valley group to pick litter from the banks of the River Cole, starting at Leaford Lane. 15 bags were picked altogether, along with a wheel, some loose rubbish and a mattress.

Jonny and I joined Mike with his wife to litter pick along the central reservation of Sutton New Road. We were mindful of the passing cars and those passing us by in the car park we were walking through. Searching high and low was very important as we found lots of cans and bottles in the high planters. By the time we reached the library, our bags were full and very heavy from the discarded bottles, so we left them at the side of the road for Erdington Litter Busters to pick up in their van.

Mike continued his amazing litter pick of the Number 11 Outer Circle route in Birmingham. In the morning, he began in Cotteridge where he had ended his Super Saturday, and was joined by Steven as he went from Selly Oak to Harborne. As you can see from the pictures, a lot of litter was collected along the way. I met up with Ben at City Hospital in the afternoon and we got straight to litter picking as we waited for Mike to get to us. It was just as well, as there was a ton of masks and other medical discards among the litter along the road, which was a bit of a wind tunnel from the bus stops outside the building. Taz came along to greet us before Mike arrived and we were granted a special Hi Viz for the occasion as we started to lag behind, picking lots of junk as we approached the Prison and went through Winson Green. We took a short cut so that we could meet up with Chloe in Handsworth. We stopped for the best of reasons, cake, to keep Mike going along the last leg to Erdington, where this 27 mile journey had begun on Saturday. We then picked along the road I live on, so I left them at the end of the road and the others went on to Perry Barr, and in Mike’s case, to the Finish Line in Erdington. What a remarkable task, taking in a whole city, meeting lots of emerging community groups who are taking ownership of the upkeep of their local environment. Hopefully we will have inspired many others to action as we were stopped many times along the way to ask what are group was or to be thanked by members of the public.

On a bright but breezy morning I met up with Amy in Erdington to join in with the epic litter pick organised by Mike, walking and picking around the number 11 Outer Circle route. This is the longest urban bus route in Europe and is 27 miles in total, which he is doing over 2 days at the weekend. We got our start point a little confused so missed him starting off, and he was having to go at quite a pace to get the route done on time, so we didn’t get to see him at all, though we did get to join in with our friends the Erdington Litter Busters. However, we did get to see Tahir as he brought some extra equipment, which helped control empty bags flying around in the wind so we could fill them with plenty of trash as we walked the first hour of the route. We left Mike to keep up the good work after filling up 3 bags between us. Later in the day, Annie joined in with him as he had made it all the way from the East of Birmingham round to the South, picking her way from Kings Heath to Cotteridge. So GoodGym were there for the beginning and the end of the day, but hats off indeed to Mike who was feeling every mile of the route and making a massive difference in many communities today.

Myself, Ben and John joined the Erdington Community Volunteers this morning as we joined their 'litter busting' group. We were given a map of which streets to do our good deed and off we set.

Plenty of litter was picked up on our way, making it a very worthwhile Mission. The warm sunshine also pushed through the clouds, making it a pleasant morning. We even found a discarded fridge full of empty beer cans! Hence this week's pun, of course technically there was no beer left, but maybe 10am was a little early anyway ;-)

Once done we got a picture of all the bags collected by ourselves and the litter busters and of course a quick selfie!

This week we welcomed Iain and Mike to GoodGym for their first ever mission! Iain is visiting from London while Mike is a litter-picking maestro, travelling all around the city to make it sparkle. We also all gave a big virtual socially distanced hug to GoodGym regular Annie, who was having trouble recognising Karin and me in real-life 3D after only seeing us on Zoom since March!

We jogged down to the River Rea next to Dogpool Lane in Stirchley for a short litter-pick. It looked like someone had been there before us as the path seemed quite neat and tidy, but in just over an hour we still managed to fill one bag of rubbish and one of recyclables (and lots of thanks from passers-by).

A few of us were a bit sleepy from the weekend so that, with the location and some of the canine rubbish we collected, resulted in this week's pun. It was lucky the sun was out to keep us awake!