On a chilly and grey January morning, myself and Jill from GoodGym Greenwich met up with the Friends of Westcombe Woodlands to help them out with their volunteer morning. We managed to find the tucked away entrance to the Woodlands thanks to a handwritten sign that they'd kindly put out for us! Once we'd both signed in and introduced ourselves we got started.

Westcombe Woodlands has three beehives on site, and they managed to secure some funding to plant a wildflower garden to continue to attract bees into the area. Previous GoodGym community missions have helped with moving three tons of soil, 350 yards from the entrance gate up to the glade. Following on from that, today's task was to move 30 square metres of meadow turf which had just been delivered and carefully lay it on the top.

The seven volunteers from Friends of Westcombe Woodlands divided up the tasks and showed us what to do. Jill did a great job helping to pile up the squares of turf at the bottom of the hill, while I helped with shuttling wheelbarrows of turf up to the glade, two squares at a time. Unfortunately for us wet turf is very heavy, and the Woodlands is on an extremely steep slope, so it was hard work indeed!

After an hour or so of heavy lifting, every single square of turf had been moved to the top and laid out, and the area was really starting to take shape! After taking a few photos we said our goodbyes to the other volunteers and headed home, taking the opportunity to walk through the lovely Greenwich Park.

Well done on another successful community mission - we hope to visit again soon when the weather's a bit warmer and see the meadow in full bloom!