Last night 6 members of GoodGym Croydon met at solutions with the hope of celebrating Magda's birthday and we noticed she was signed up to the group run. Having spent my afternoon trying to find some form of vegan cake/cupcake with no success, and telling the group about my struggle I was reminded that Jammy Dodgers/Oreo were vegan, so I ran to the co-op to pick up a few packets. On checking the labels, I can confirm Jammy Doggers are vegan but Oreos are not but they are suitable for vegetarians.

The 6 of us completed our warm up before we set off on our jog to Wandle Park, Magda has been nursing an injury so we were expecting her to meet us at the park as she is currently unable to run.

We arrived at Wandle park just before 7:30, Catherine and another of the friends of Wandle Park volunteer was already there getting the shovels, rakes, wheel barrow and other containers together for us to use to shift the wood chip. We gave them a hand bringing the tools over and before we started Catherine was please to show us the table table that was made from the board of the planters we had emptied on a previous visit.

Lets get chipping

After admiring the upcycled wooden table we set of to the wood chip mountain and began to chip away at it. As usual we had that old tried and tested supply chain running, we had some digging and filling the various receptacles while some of us transported them to the area with the raised beds where others were busy spreading the wood chip.

Its getting hot in here!

If you cant take the heat get out the wood chip!

The heat is on!

Feeling Hot hot hot!

Surprisingly the top layer of the wood chip mountain was wet but once we shifted the top layer we could feel the heat coming from the mountain. We had all dressed for a cold evening in the park but the heat from the wood chip had some of us sweating. Not that the heat from the pile was as hot at that of a volcano but it got the group talking about trips they have taken to Italy (Mount Etna) and New Zealand (Mount Tongariro). (Ingrid correct me if I'm wrong please)

Time was on our side and we managed to move all the wood chip, Catherine was very pleased with what we had done and thanked us for completing another task that would have taken her and the friends of Wandle longer to complete.

Catherine and the Friends of Wandle Park will be happy at what we accomplished on the night but but there will be a lot of unhappy squirrels later in the winter searching for the nuts that was buried in the wood chip pile.

Unfortunately Magda didn't make it to the task, who can blame her it was her birthday and we were surprised when we saw she had signed up to the task, but we were looking forward to see her. Although she wasn't there we sang her happy birthday before we tucked into the Jammy Dogers and Oreo cookies I had taken with me to celebrate her birthday. They were a nice little refuel before we started our jog back to Solutions with the though of running up the hill on Church Street.

Last night 9 members of GoodGym Croydon ran to Wandle Park to assist Friends of Wandle Park move soil from two raised beds to prepare one for renovation and the other for dismantling.

When we arrived Catherine and Matthew was there awaiting our arrival along with Magda one of our Members Magda have been nursing an injury but didn't want to miss out on the exciting task we had at hand.

After having our briefing from Catherine regarding what she wanted us to do we set off with our shovels, forks, bucket and a wheel barrow. While working we spotted Ros, making her way to us, after having a busy day at work she had a little siesta but over slept and woke up at 7, good thing for her our task wasn't to far away from her home. A few minutes later we were joined by Peter, he had plan to meet us at the task after plotting the route there but didn't notice the route was in miles rather than kilometres. He was a bit out of breath but once he had a breather he got stuck into the task.

From the number of snails and slugs out you could have tell we had a down pour of rain however once we had dug the top layers from the planters you would never be able to guess the rain had fallen. The soil in the lower levels of the planters were dry which was good in one sense as it wasn't as heavy as we had expected given the massive down pour earlier, in another the soil was tough and this was where the forks came in.

As the clock stroke 8, which was noticeable from the tolls in the distance, we were more than halfway through emptying the two planters, the head torches where out along with the various lights I've come to own as a result of our many adventures around Croydon during the winter in the name of Good Gym.

Although darkness is now expected at all tasks going forward it wasn't cold and wet, not that the weather has ever put us off doing our good deeds for our community. It will be a surprise for some of our new members when we are out in the rain and snow laughing and chatting away as we continue to impress the community organisations we assist.

Next week we will be going back to Unique Roots and our visit will be a day after Pam's birthday so come and join us a we celebrate with Pam, rumour has it there might be drinks and cake! Sign up Here!