Better late than never! Writing this report 10 days after the event... 👀

On a glorious Saturday morning, three GoodGymers showed up for Camberwell Feel Good Festival's GoodGym Southwark session. It was designed to get others interested in GoodGym to see what we are all about.

Unfortunately, those who were about were engaged in other session or weren't dressed for the occasion (walking or running). Yet, Harvey from GG Ealing and Rebecca from around the corner showed up eager to get in a mini-run to Thorlands.

At Thorlands, we were met by Simon who decided that since we are in three we would just focus on the planters in the Walled Garden, which needed a good watering with a mixture of straw mulching.

The session was shorter than normal due to the nature of it being a "Starter session". Yet, we got plenty done in 20-30 minutes and Harvey and Rebecca found that they have a lot in common... being Geordies. 😂

Due to flight issues coming back from Spain, Rebecca found herself at Thorlands two weeks in a row! It was also a delight to see the regular Lucie and a newbie to the area, Benoît who cycled all the way from Bethnal Green in East London.

The foursome took on the "Forest" garden since the woodchip delivery didn't arrive on time, the team continued with putting down cardboard, leaf mulch and woodchip to the tunes of summer throwbacks. By the end of the hour (and over the course of many Saturdays), they had covered almost a third of the "Forest" garden. There's more of this to be done to cover the whole area to ensure weeds can't grow and to start anew.

Alice, Rebecca and Sam met up Simon at Thorlands for another weekly session and a continuation of the overall vision and project. It was Rebecca's first ever GoodGym, so we welcomed her with the background of Thorlands, where it is now and where we want it to go. Welcome again, Rebecca! Glad to have you come along to your first GoodGym session.

Sam has been collecting cardboard, but he forgot to bring the masses of boxes he has accumulated. However, he arrived early and searched around the "Walled" Garden and found a few older pieces that Simon had collected as Sam wanted to use this session to put down more cardboard and leaf mulch to keep on renewing the soil in the "Forest" garden ensuring that we stay on top of the weeds. Firstly, we had to use the dutch hoe and mattock to dig up the soil and ensure we got all the roots out and afterwards raked the area to make it flat before the cardboard could be put down and leaf mulch on top of that.

By the end of the session, we had put down a couple cardboards and leaf mulch near the Hazel trees. Yet, there's more area to be covered. Simon had provided Alice and Sam with a goodie bag of harvested salad leafs to take home as Rebecca was heading off to Spain.

Next time, we should be getting woodchip to start putting down a woodchip path in the "Kitchen" garden.