Today we were back at Maryon Park community garden, a wonderful space that has been lovingly run by Edna and Tim for many years. Coming here has always been a favourite task for Good Gym Greenwich and it was nice to be back. The tasks today were manyfold; the garden having become quite overgrown in places and a gap had opened up in the orchard that needed to be plugged to make things safer.

So to work, and two of the team worked to plug the gap using some old pieces of fence (with some masterful manoeuvring needed to get said fences to the orchard), two of us set to trimming overhanging foliage and the rest of us set to removing copious numbers of weeds.

And karma was kind to us: despite a terrible weather forecast the rain held off for the whole session and after an hour’s hard work we were done. As usual Tim and Edna had generously provided snacks and we also benefited for some lovely leftover cake that Cat had prepared for her book group (thanks Cat, it was lovely).

The sun was out and so were Good Gym. An amazing 8 of us turned up to help the team at Hervey Road, where Annie and Richard are working hard to build a garden behind the sports field.

We were met first by Khai who had had the presence of mind and kindness of heart to bring water for everyone, which was really helpful as it was certainly hot. Annie soon arrived and were assigned to a multitude of tasks with some of the team watering some very thirsty trees, others cutting the grass and others weeding the various beds, all the time making sure we didn't cut down or kneel on or otherwise trash any of the beautiful wild flowers growing. And what was also nice to see was that we were joined by countless bumblebees and ladybirds, showing that South East London is a wonderful hot-bed for nature.

After an hour we were all pretty much exhausted and it was time for photos before heading off to enjoy the sunshine,

Finally, I can''t finish the report without a shout out for Sarah, who had completed her 400th parkrun that morning,. This is such a brilliant achievement so well done Sarah.

On a chipper Saturday morning in May, 3 goodgym-ers made their way to St Richard's Church in Charlton. Good Gym Greenwich have been working on a project here, and today's task involved the next step, which proved both slightly daunting at the start (that was a big pile of woodchip!) and rewarding to see the progress we had made.

St Richard's is a local community church, with a very weeded outside area, which the team are keen to turn into a more usable community space. During past tasks, we've cleared weeds & laid down a membrane base. Today we were greeted by a freshly delivered hill, made up of pine tree wood and leaf chippings (which smelled amazingly like Christmas trees...!) and it was our mission today to spread this over the membrane layer. Spades, rakes, and buckets at the ready, we dug straight in to move that mulch mountain from A to B, C and D. Our time flew by with much chatter, some helpful supervision from honorary Good-gym member, local cat Freya, and the path really looks like it's taking shape now. Thanks to all involved & have a great weekend! 😊