It was huge fun to work with the fantastic team of volunteers running the Paws in the Park dog show in Cator park today. By the end of the event followed by gazebo dismantling and clear-up, we were all happily exhausted, glowing with the joy of being surrounded by cute pooches and knowing valuable funds have been raised for environmental projects to enhance this popular community space. Turns out deaf dalmatian Lottie, winner of Best in Show prize, is a champion in more than one way – apparently her owners are teaching her sign language!

We started the evening at the Bridge House, welcoming Ella to the group, who's been back running for about a year now and was looking for a way to help out and get more involved locally when Goodgym mention popped up for inspiration. We got onto the serious business of favourite ice cream flavours, inspired by a local small business who make proper posh ice cream from oat milk. Lots of fancy choices followed, from miso caramel to blood orange to pistachio, what a varied and cultured bunch :) A short chatty run to Cator Park, just stopping for a little active stretchy warm-up in Penge. Then onto the task - redoing the butterfly scrape started last year but that needed a bit more help to really get it going for next summer. So we all set at it with forks and rakes and hoes (and a bit of giggling). Me, I can't help thinking of the Thundercats when someone says 'hoe'. Hmmm, should probably have kept that to myself! Under Millie's cheery expert instruction we dug and turned the pebbly ground, then some of us sprinkled on wildflower seeds and covered over with a bit more earth - as we could feel the birdies beady eyes from somewhere in the darkness just waiting to swoop in for the tasty seeds. Back to the Bridge House in smaller groups after, bit of a cool down stretch while hearing the fun of Drag Bingo going on inside. Can't wait to see what this butterfly job at the park looks like next summer!

We had our first properly dark task of the season tonight as we helped Millie and the Friends of Cator Park neaten up foliage ahead of the annual Paws in the Park competition on Sunday. Work lights set up, Millie taught us how to scallop the bramble edge so that more of the path was accessible but we still left enough greenery for the birds and insects.

It was Elna's first task and she got stuck in with the shears straight away. We were also joined mid-way through the task by Millie's schnauzers who did a great job of supervising.

Nice job all!

Inspired by shopping for a water butt, tonight's dilemma of the day was "What's your favourite vessel for drinking liquid?" It turns out everyone has a very specific mug, broken bottle or tankard, unless you're James for whom it's much more important that the liquid itself delivers after a tough week of work 🍷 Fair enough!

We split into two cohorts to get to our task - Cat led a longer run with Stephen as trusty backmarker, whilst Charlie and I took a stroll!

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Bark in the Dark...

Our task was at Cator Park, filling up barrows and buckets with woodchip at one end and ferrying it over to the new Tiny Forest at the other end. Maybe we should actually install a boat to carry it along the stream?

In what was apparently the final mulch run of the year, we got a solid 10+ barrows-full from the pile to the tiny trees.

The wee saplings will be much better protected from competing weeds now that it's knee deep in woodchip!

Ace work team, and don't forget to bring head torches next week 💡

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I'm pretty sure it's the hottest day of the year or something, so some of us were definitely FLAGGING today.

We kicked off at the Bridge House with our top ways to cool down. Fans, iced coffee, cold showers - nice.

Then we split into a couple of groups with the blokes taking a stroll and the women doing a run to Cator Park.

Their new Tiny Forest was looking a wee bit weedy so our task was to get some fresh mulch from the piles over the other side of the park. Buckets, wheelbarrows and many shovels were used to get a good third of the new saplings surrounded.

Millie wasn't sure they were going to get the exciting new Green Flag raised without her husband, so most of us headed off, but fortunately Hannah filmed the flag raising.

Well done Friends of Cator Park and Alexandra Recreation Ground. And well done GoodGymers for playing a seriously key role in making this happen.

The roses blooming in the borders of Alexandra Recreation Ground are looking even more impressive after a sunny session of tidying by today’s volunteers. We dead-headed the bushes to encourage them to continue flowering for longer – benefiting pollinating insects – and we removed bindweed threatening to choke the growth of shrubs. As a bonus, we found ripe plums on trees in the community orchard… there’s nothing quite as satisfying as free fresh food eaten outdoors! Everyone enjoyed sampling some of the low-hanging fruit and we picked plenty to take home – helped by the discovery that a litter picker makes a useful tool for grabbing plums too high to reach by hand!