Although our community gardening session was cancelled last night, it turned into the perfect chance for a bit of litter picking instead. We gathered at Old Spike before heading out for a run around Peckham Rye Park, then split into three teams for the clean-up.

To make things even more fun, there were prizes up for grabs: the best “G” item for GoodGym, the most “South London” find, and the piece most likely to belong in a modern art museum. In true diplomatic style, each team came away with a win—so everyone left happy!

We finished with a run back to Old Spike, a well-earned cool down, and then headed home feeling accomplished.

We kicked things off at Old Spike and somehow managed to dodge the heavy rain as we made our way over to Old Alleynian Rugby Club. We had three newbies with us—Roland, Kamil, and Olga—great to have them along for their first Southwark Group Run!

Ian met us at the club and set us up with some weeding and patching up the pitches with seed. Once the hard work was done, we got our reward: a game of touch rugby. Ian then fueled us up with winegums before our run back.

After that, it was back to Old Spike and straight on to Brick Brewery for a well-earned drink and a good catch-up.

We were joined last minute by Emma, who had heard there were blackberries to rip up. So after a short hop, skip and a jump we set off to Thorlands.

After arriving slightly early we were met by Simon, who explained we needed to move leaf mould and take out the blackberries, which had taken over too much of the community garden. So we got to work and managed to clear a significant area of the blackberry while the other half of the group transported many barrows of mould.

After the hard work and the job back to Peckham we cooled off at the Nags.

On a warm summer evening, we set off from Old Spike and made our way—running the 5.5 km (with a little unplanned detour) to Blackfriars Estate. It was a long group run, but the sense of pride when we arrived made every step worth it.

There, we were warmly welcomed by Corin and got straight to work, shifting heavy bags of soil to clear space for the final stages of their landscaping project. It was serious, sweaty lifting, but as a team we got the job done.

With the task complete, we made the return journey to Old Spike—tired, but with that satisfying feeling of a mission accomplished.