We made our way to South East London Mind last night to help the centre get its therapy garden shipshape for service users to enjoy.

We were quickly set to work:

• James, Mark and Nick built four planters in record time
• Catherine, Fi and I de-weeded some raised beds and got a horticultural education in the process
• Tim got his hands on the litter pickers and made sure that no crisp packet was spared
• David and James cleared the car park of leaves and other hazards

After about 40 minutes of GoodGyming we ran back to base via Kent House for some wall sits and finished with a sprint finish up the hill to the Bridge House. David proved victorious on this occasion but I have a feeling James will be wanting a re-run soon!

It was lovely to see so many GoodGymers join us for another trip to the Crystal Palace Water Tower 🗼 this week 😁

At the Bridge House we introduced ourselves and answered this week's question - "Where would you like to run a marathon?". A wonderfully diverse range of suggestions came up, from the self-indulgent ("Edinburgh, because it's a flat course and I'm lazy" - your report author) to the far away (Tokyo), the safe bets (London and Boston) to the classical (Vienna and Athens).

We then headed out to Crystal Palace Park for some warming up, before splitting off into long distance and shorter distance run groups 🏃. Cat, Clare and James headed round the perimeter of the park with their group, while Hannah and I took advantage of the light to cut through the middle with all its steepness leading our group to get to the Water Tower.

There we met John, impressed with our number, and got to work inside. Having removed much soil and foliage over the last couple of years, we're now into the detailed work of removing stones and small rocks 🪨, as well as carefully uncovering the remaining pipework that sits around the edge of the tower, alongside the last bit of soil removal.

Hannah found the old furnace 🔥 and confirmed she'd fit inside (thankfully it's been turned off for a very long time), while James did a sterling job of cutting out the shifting of soil into our makeshift soil sorter (a supermarket trolley) using a shovel by simply lifting the wheelbarrow the soil was in over the trolley. Fast work, if not light!

At 8pm we still had good light, but it was time to say goodbye to John and head back down the west side of the park and back to Bridge House for our cool down stretches.

Great contributions from all - see you next time! 👋