As the students had left town for the Summer it was a good opportunity to give the Kingsgate Church food bank a Summer clean.

Claire and Farzeen started working on the fridges and freezers cleaning away the pesky crumbs and washing all the shelves and drawers.

Meanwhile upstairs the team of Luke, Tom, Jenny, Anna and Enara started to sort the canned fruit, meatballs, soup and some very strange looking drinks to identify those which had expired or were close to expiry. Anything close to expiry was put at the top of the pile and everything that had expired was separated out.

One of the freezers needed a little help defrosting for its clean so Anna joined Farzeen with some hot water to give it a helping hand whilst Tom tackled the last fridge.

Everything cleaned and sorted some brave Goodgymers decided to try the mystery drinks that would apparently provide calmness. Some slightly odd expressions followed the tasting - very sweet flavoured with a combination of berries was the verdict. Let’s hope they provided a sense of calm and serenity.

For those that didn’t fancy the mystery drinks there was an assortment of soup, tinned fruit and shepherds pies to take home that were close to expiry and prevent unnecessary food waste.

A big welcome to our newcomers Jenny and Enara!

We've normally been in action outside the front of Surbiton Library, where we've beautified the planters, removed more ivy than can be imagined and generally kept it looking nice.

The car park behind the building was the issue this time around and we were joined by Alan, a local resident who felt that the litter had begun to make it very unpleasant.

Luckily we had a top team to get down to work. Anna, Claire, Dave, Emily, Laurel, Luke, Marcos, Rachel, Sabir and Tom grabbed litter pickers, hoes, brushes and black bags and got going.

We removed a huge amount of green waste, cans, plastic and even socks. Alan was very grateful for our efforts and it looked way better after just an hour. Emily even had time to make it to the pub to see the England Lionesses fight their way out of trouble yet again.

A nice hour outside making a difference.

For the next few weeks 7 Goodgymers from Kingston and beyond signed up to help collect and submit data from their different areas of butterflies and moths in different surroundings including parks, hedgerows and gardens. This will help see how these wonderful species are doing in the current times and climate.

This morning I kicked my count off by observing some hedgerow by the Hogmill River. There mainly seemed to be just the one type here. Will hopefully see some more different types when I go looking in Richmond Park next week.