Last night was all about destruction; demolishing the remains of a dilapidated allotment space and a brutal game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

After a quick briefing, including many a safety warning, we had a speedy warm up and set off to Lee Samuel House, a sheltered housing block, just a few hundred metres from Papa's Park.

Tom took a group on a 4k jaunt and the rest of us took a spiralling route round the houses. We all ran past David Bowie's birthplace but alas, we had no idea which house it was...!

When we arrived, Mandy from Notting Hill Genesis gave us the lowdown on the garden and how it was going to be transformed into a far nicer allotment, with raised beds and levelled ground so the residents could grow their own food.

The task ahead was a big one.

It was a huge space with a monumental amount of wood, metal, trellis, plant pots, canes, tyres, netting, planks, the walls of a childrens playhouse, pallets, bed frames, plastic, bricks, a frog, foam, carpet, rope, multiple large spiders, rods, crates etc. etc. etc. and a whole lot of weeds to avoid. And all this needed dismantling and sorting into piles.

With nothing but our hands and some gardening gloves we set to work. Everyone split themselves between different sections of the garden, working together to decide how best to break everything apart. As soon as one structure was taken down, we'd find something else underneath which needed dismantling. Wood was held together by stubborn nails, netting was wrapped around weeds and wooden planks seemed to have merged with the ground...

But there was nothing than could stop the undeniable force that is GoodGym Lambeth from getting the job done.

When everything was piled up, we took a quick group snap of our efforts and headed back to PAPA's. We had time for a quick game of rock, paper, scissors (lose - you sprint to the fence and back, win - you do a squat or a wall sit) and a nice long stretch to finish off.

Amazing work everybody, and nice to see some new faces to Lambeth! 👏👏👏 to Lucy and Julia who joined us for their first ever GoodGym run!

Next week it's a nice long run to the Portico Gallery in West Norwood! See you then. ✌️

We turned up at Ms R's house at 11am and made a massive difference in just 24 mins. Ms R is waiting to come home from hospital and her physio needed a hand moving furniture around to make space for a new hospital bed and hoist. We moved two chests of drawers, two bedside tables, bags of clothes, and couple of chairs. It meant we reached the window and opened the curtains which hadn't been done for a while! Quick work, it's always satisfying to see such a big impact in such a short time, the medical equipment company can now deliver what's needed, and Ms R can come home!

We had lots of lovely new people this evening and indeed lots of lovely regulars, amounting to over 40 human beans that were kicking off their December in style with a monster GoodGym Lambeth session helping out our old friends at Vauxhall Foodbank. It's a 3.5km run each way and on arrival Alice had some Christmas tunes and mince pies waiting for us - nice!

The Foodbank helps families and individuals facing short term crisis. Unfortunately the number of people relying on foodbanks in the UK is rising and the festive season is also a time when many people are in additional need. This means it's a busy time for the staff and volunteers, so our help was needed to sort out their bumper supermarket collections. You may have been given a list at your local supermarket and asked to buy a tin of something to donate to your local foodbank. Vauxhall is no different and there were crates and crates of food to sort out into categories. This time there was an additional complication of also separating by use by date. It took a little while to get the system set up but then we were really cooking on gas.

Now we're really cooking on gas! Said Freyja, who was in charge of proceedings

Katie took half the group outside to do some beautiful fitness that everyone LOVED and one the crates started filling up it was time to get weighing. We ran back in three groups at three speeds, so everyone could get a comfortable pace going. As the 'in a hurry' group were getting ready to leave ANOTHER load of donations were delivered. So the team also helped to get these into the building.

Alice did her sums and it turns out we sorted nearly ONE TONNE of food, which was quite amazing. On return to base, we enjoyed our last Bake Off treats - Freyja's delish pistachio and chocolate cake. YUM!

Merry Christmas Vauxhall Foodbank - we love coming to visit you but at the same time, we hope that maybe next year there won't be so much need for your services. Now that's a Christmas wish we can all get behind.