Two cages of donations sorted by us Good Gym Peeps. Good work!

A mixed bag as always - today featured many substandard shoes and mondo mankey socks!

Halloween making a decent appearance once more as you can see in our pics. (Some people really make an effort 🎃👻.)

Still loads of winter cuddlies in the mix too. Sad not much designer stuff today - so less cash for the charity. Fingers crossed for more EBay friendly things next time.

Ann, Caroline & Simon.

Another lively clothes-sorting session at the Community Hospice Shop with Caroline and Ann, all under the watchful eye of James. While we’re surrounded by everything from hoovers to hairdryers, musical instruments to power tools—and books galore—our mission is clear: sort the clothes!

Our sorting categories? Excellent, Good, Not Bad, Bad and ugh! It’s remarkable what turns up. Some donations are so stylish and classy and sometimes whole bags full and it makes you wonder why someone would offload such lovely stuff. Then there's stuff on the other end of the scale. I don't dwell on it though because there's lots more to sort!

The three hours fly by as we laugh and chat, especially when we uncover something utterly bizarre—items of clothing that defy logic. No labels, no clues, and no obvious way of getting into them! It's like trying to solve a textile puzzle. Who wears this stuff? More importantly—how?

The job is an education in fashion, function, and the fantastic creativity of designers. One minute it’s a cashmere coat, the next it’s... well, we're not entirely sure. But whatever it is, it keeps things fun.

This was the first of two GG Bexley sessions at the Community Hospice warehouse sorting donations this weekend.

When we arrived James from the warehouse team had lots of bags of donations ready for us to tackle.

We did well - got through two cages of clothes, and found many surprises. Highlights were the silver pair of shiny budgie smugglers🤣, a very unusual large soft toy badger with a smart coat 🦡, and a long animal tail-like thing which might have been a key ring (it was left in the office for investigation!)

One man had donated a full set of motorcycle leathers 🏍, and we had Rotary Club regalia as well.

Winter coats abounded - must be spring!

Afterwards it was a nice walk back home in the sun for me.

Caroline and I had a good three-hour session sorting through many bags of second hand clothing mostly in great resaleable condition plus the occasional new items that still had labels. This is great uncomplicated work and the time goes fast while you're doing it. There was one Barbour coat which is considered a prestige item but it looked like the farmer had been run over by his tractor by the condition of it! There was also a moment when our bag fell over the edge of the table and I had to take emergency action - see photo. Thanks to Andrew for supervising. Simon