Snow way?!

Two unexpected things tonight:

SNOW, or some blossom that looked like snow, and a LIZARD loose in Cator Park. We didn’t see it but we were shown pics. Wild.

Before all that excitement, we met at the bridge house, named ourselves, partially numbered, and told everyone our favourite races/future races.

We jogged a cool 2-3km to the park via the snow to meet Gill, Lou and Ian aka some of the friends of Cator and Alexandra parks for some Tiny Forest weeding, mulching and watering of the thirsty trees.

Lou showed us a pic of the lizard, which someone probably let loose. No one saw it.

300 trees, 1000 weeds and several wheelbarrows of mulch later and we were done. Nice one everyone 🦎

We went to Churchfields Recreation Ground tonight for some weeding abd watering in their tiny forest!

As usual, we met at Bridge House where we introduced ourselves and answered this week's question - what's your favourite ice cream flavour? We ran the gamut from run & raisin to cornetto chocolate, but Kelsey won the evening with orange choc chip :O

It was a 2km run through Penge and along Avenue Road to the Ground where we met Amanda, who helps run the Friends Group, who handed out tools for us to water the trees and take out the weeds.

We worked industriously as the sun set and left the tiny forest looking better than we found it, which is grand!

A pleasant 2km run back to Bridge House for some stretches and then split up to bead home :)

Massive shout out to Lindsay🤓 - first time GoodGymer!

Tonight we were back at Brunel's old water tower, or what's left of it at least... There are grand plans to make it a part of the Crystal Palace museum story, but first it needs emptying out, which is where we come in! We've been removing weeds, soil, rubble and rubbish and are making steady progress.

First up, we met at the Bridge House (shout out to Jess for joining for the first time 🙌) and had a super windy route up through the park, trying to not get hit by the bike race...

At the tower, our tools were nicely prepped by David and we got straight to work, this time focusing on the entrance which had become overgrown. Clare, James and Fi were also building a fab structure of bricks (rather than a pile...) in order to access some of the plant roots.

By the end, team entrance and team brick had made a really big difference, in such a short space of time!

Nicely done everyone - a well deserved beverage at the pub 🥂

Cheers for the before & after shots Catherine!

Meeting as usual at the Bridge House, all beaming from the sunshine, we had a brief chat about our favourite DIY tasks, which ranged from just the pure satisfaction of completing any job, to the complicated rewiring of electrical things (hot tip - take a photo of how it looked before you touched it!)

We jogged off for a little loop round the sights of Penge and back to Anerley, and peered in at the frogspawn in the little corner pond of the St Hugh's community garden.

Mark had already collected some willow stems, and some of us set about planting them to make a living hedge (which you can weave together once it's a bit more established). The rest of us had a heavy little workout shifting railway sleepers and pallets from the front of the garden to the back, where they'll make more raised beds and other garden features for locals.

All in all a lovely productive sunny evening :)

David and I had a nice run from base and Charlie had made his way from Sydenham station, but unfortunately our task tonight wasn't able to happen 🥲 More railing scraping for us to do next time!

Luckily we found a nearby pub and brainstormed a few ideas for GG socials 💡

A fab five went up the hill ⛰️ to Upper Norwood tonight to help Sabine at the Central Hill Estate get some gazebos 🎪 and a table ready for an Easter Egg Hunt 🐣 she's organising on Saturday.

We had perfect weather ☀️ to motivate us to higher ground through the Crystal Palace Park, which we can now enjoy as it's light again! Speaking of, tonight's question was "Name your favourite part of the Park". From the dinosaurs ☀️ to the maze to the transmission tower, it's an iconic place. As we headed into the entrance by Bridge House, we spotted some lovely annuals in the planter and stopped for what might be the earliest run photo ever? 😂

We met Sabine at her lock-up, collected the bits to take across the estate and headed over to a fellow resident's house on the other side nearer to the planned event space, who will mind the kit for the week. Props to James for moving the really heavy gazebo!

It was a quick task but will have a major impact, helping the estate residents enjoy Easter as a community 🙂