The vast number of photos of our river litter pick in collaboration with Falcon boat club and Isis Canoe Club tell the story of our Saturday task better than any written words. Fabulous sunshine, friendly faces; the perfect day to spend a couple of hours on the water and along the river bank. We cleared a huge haul of detritus from in and around the river and had fun in the sun.

Great to see you at your 1st GG task Ian, and nice to meet you Louise!

We seem to have the knack of scheduling digging tasks during cold snaps lately, so this week we were exchanging regular messages with Helen from the Oxford Urban Wildlife Group to see if we could go ahead with our Saturday morning task. Luckily the ground hadn't frozen too hard by Saturday morning, so off to the nature park we went. It looked magical in the nature park in the frosty, freezing fog. Almost pretty enough for us to forget the cold!

Our task was to dig out bramble roots in a couple of patches of land that are destined to be grassland. The brambles take over fast in the spring, smothering other plants and massively reducing biodiversity, so digging out their roots in the winter helps stop that happening. Bramble roots are often huge - you'd easily mistake some for tree roots - so it's not always an easy task, but it is satisfying. The wildlife group had got 2 new Lazy Dogs for our session (sadly not snoozy canine companions, but a tool designed to dig out roots) so we were well equipped this month. A couple of muddy hours later we'd cleared several wheelbarrow loads of roots and had kept active enough that most of us could still feel our fingers and toes!

Welcome to GoodGym Louise.

Picture the scene. It's early November- breezy and slightly raining- there are leaves coming off the trees at a rate of knots. Not just a few leaves, there are MANY MANY leaves. 10 intrepid GoodGymers made their way back to Littlemore Village Hall to help them clear leaves from their front space and paths. We'd previously helped at the Hall in July and it was wonderful to be back! We managed to get about 90% of the leaves cleared and safely into a space to be composted. Whilst one team ensured no leaf was left behind, another team had begun to plant some spring bulbs- they got a head start on being watered into the ground as it then began to rain steadily. That meant cake and tea in the Hall. We are always so well looked after by the lovely Hall team and it was lovely to see them again! Hopefully we'll be able to come back to the Hall soon to see the bulbs in bloom! A fabulous effort everyone and a big welcome to James on joining us for the first time, lovely to meet you!

The Aston's Eyot Triathlon: Scything, Digging and log-carrying. It'll be a Commonwealth Games sport one day you know!

We spent our evening working around the new wildlife pond on Aston's Eyot - digging nettle roots out of the area where the Friends of Aston's Eyot plan to create a boggy area, scything and raking up nettles to try and encourage greater biodiversity, and moving logs to create suitable habitats for reptiles to hibernate (and to clear them from a new footpath).

Aston's Eyot used to be a rubbish dump, so there's lots of Victorian trash all over just below the surface, which makes digging and weeding a bit of a treasure hunt. Who could have predicted that we would be unearthing an old laxative bottle and taking it home to use as a vase? Hopefully the digging team won't get prosecuted for their efforts by Christchurch college - the sign prohibiting digging looked pretty ancient!

Scything is a GoodGym right of passage, so we're always delighted to have a chance to show our newer members how to do it. Fortunately this load of nettle scything didn't seem to trigger everyone's allergies like it did when we scythed nettles in June before. Good to know August is better for the hayfever sufferers!

Well done on reaching the 10 Good Deeds milestone Laurie.