@GoodGymGreenwich met @CleanUpCharlton to show the streets of SE7 a little love. One hour, three bags, a suitcase, a tripod and something-highly-suspect in a small packet later we'd tackled some patches along the Woolwich Road and discovered Covid-era detrius under the shrubbery at the back of Lidl (plenty more to do there) - three bags duly left for Royal Greenwich Council.

Another highlight was being thanked by lovely 'Lviss' - a nature-loving, eco-conscious local, fellow litter-picker, poet and Insta-influencer! Cat and Fliss now posted and tagged for posterity on @LvissDavid. Do give him a follow! #lovewhereyoulive

We were a blaze of red helping the Friends of Danson Park this morning.

Some of us got a good workout shovelling wood chippings into barrows, wheeling them to the Woodland Path and raking them out to spruce up the trail.

Others flexed their muscles to move logs into a defined edging along the path. 🪵

And we also got busy with secateurs cutting back saplings and brambles to help the trees thrive. 🌳 🌿

There was plenty of chatting between ourselves and with the regular volunteers.

After some final fun trying to set up a group photo using the camera timer, we rounded off the task with tea, coffee and shortbread. What a nice treat!

Well done Team GoodGym!

Dearest gentle reader...

The end of one Season appears to be upon us, so let us take these opportunities to promenade along our beautiful river...

(Sadly I'm not a period drama writer so that's as far as that goes....) However - a warmish late summer evening meant just that for 8 GoodGymers, as we made our way from the Royal Naval College for a run along the Thames to Christ Church in Greenwich, where we had plenty of autumnal tasks to keep us busy. Lots of chopping, pruning, and sawing of branches ensued, (we saw some great teamwork reaching those high branches with litter pickers and long stemmed shears...!) making for better drainage & natural light entering the building. Other team members re-planted shrubs which needed saving from their broken planters, ready for the new season. Dusk crept up on us too quickly, and it was time to move on for a pint at the Yacht. Happy birthday to Jenny and special welcome to Jackie on your first session- it was lovely to have you with us.

Have a great week all 🙂

Next week we're at Charlton Manor Primary school. Until next time!

Today was a beautiful day!

After our mornings of Junior Parkrunning, where we had our inaugural Hornfair Junior Parkrun and an impressive 28 children (and I know because we were the last) we all congregated in Hornfair Park in the sweltering heat to share what we're grateful for over the last week. The responses ranged from a spontaneous dinner with friends to the beautiful summer we're finally enjoying. After a quick and brutal round of duck, duck, goose we jogged through Charlton Park before deciding to walk the rest of the way, being unused to such heat in our little island of rain, and cloudy skies. As Bea tells her mum: "it's hot, I don't know how hot it's just either people have told me it's hot or I feel it's hot."

It was lovely to be joined by Tom on the fly before a Lido swim and Cat met us at the common after an eventful and rather hair raising cycle ride over (she'll have to tell you the story).

At the common we were met by the friendly Friends of group who do amazing work coordinating local efforts to keep the common a place for us all to enjoy. Today was a mammoth litter picking session after lots of house removal waste was fly tipped on the common and we spent a while picking up glass, boards and plaster as well as the usual bottles and plastic...and the odd sock.

Well done team, a great effort and lots of reward as the common looked much cleaner after our session there. It was nice to be rewarded by some beautiful blackberries on the way home!

I'll leave us with a poem posting on the Friends of Woolwich Common Fb group the other day which I enjoyed from Brian Bilston’s Days Like These:

It's hard not to feel bitter about the litter

Crochety and cruppish about the rubbish

ill-disposed to all those who ill dispose

but at least business is picking up, i suppose