This mission was all about stairs and we certainly were stairstruck but managed to hold it together to complete the task at hand! We tag teamed to bring a load of stuff for storage down from the mezzanine which involved navigating a very narrow, steep set of stairs. Then carried it all across the car park to another community centre and up two flights of stairs (correctly recognised by Cat as an old school for the iconic reddish flooring). After several reps the mezzanine was looking much clearer and the new storage room was full up, signalling a successfully completed task and a decent work out for a friday evening - good job team 😁

Until next time!

Thursday morning started an hour earlier than usual at Charlton House Garden, with the gardening session moved forward in anticipation of the hottest day, with temperatures expected to reach a scorching 36°C!

The main task was watering, making sure the plants had some much-needed hydration before the heat really kicked in.

I had the pleasure of doing a bit of teasel sculpting — carefully removing the thorny leaves while keeping the teasels standing tall and proud in the garden. With so few plants flowering in this intense heat, the teasels were definitely allowed to Teasel the Day and take centre stage!

It was a shorter session than usual, but certainly a sweaty one! Between the watering, gardening and the rising temperature, I definitely worked up a sweat.

Phew! A little TLC for the garden, a bit of teasel sculpting, and plenty of sunshine — another GoodGym session done! 💪

Whoever’s joining this Tuesday’s session, please sign up and see you there! 😊 Cecilia D🍀

Tonight's task saw 12 Greenwich GoodGym-ers meet for a de-brambling session at Vanbrugh Pits in Blackheath.

Talk of favourite shops, past and present, got us through our relative journeys, and we were just about to walk on by, when suddenly, and without warning, there was this Partial Eclipse of the Sun! It got slightly dark, and there was this strange humming sound, like something from another world...🎵

OK, so that's actually a line from a Little Shop of Horrors song. Thankfully, the brambles we had to tackle weren't carnivorous like the one from the musical, but were pretty prickly, so we made good use of the tools provided, including loppers, forks, and mattocks, hacking & twirling and digging out roots. After a few trips to pile up the cuttings for collection by the local council, our time was up, and the "after" photo shows what a dent we made in the overgrown area. A total Eclipse of the Bark indeed!

Thanks all & see you soon ☀️🌙

Back onto the streets of SE7 to 'Clean Up Charlton' with today's strange star finds consisting of three shoes (no matching pair) including one belonging to Barbie. We headed down the Woolwich Road, clearing the shrubbery as we went and finding 4 full cans of cider (Cider with Toesie?) and a ton of cigarette ends.

We cleaned up Popeye's Passage and the bad area at the side of Asda's carpark - a shoe-in for the 'worst litter in Charlton' award today! Finally, we retraced our steps via the bins, with our 10 bags of litter for well deserved coffee at M&S. Thanks to everyone for a great job, and to the Council for supplying the official grey and clear bags and for collecting them. And well done to Aman on his 50th good deed!

7 Goodgymers turned up to help the Friends of Sutcliffe Park with an absolute Everest of a task: tearing up Himalayan balsam (not to be mistaken for celery). And there was no need to go to base camp to find it. We have all we need here at sea level.

We pulled up the balsam and separated the flowers from the stems to stop it going to seed and spreading even further. It was a real uphill battle, but we were determined to stem the tide before the balsam reached new heights.

No sherpas or oxygen needed, just a red shirt, some gloves, and the Goodgymers usual peak performance. A mountain of balsam tackled, one stem at a time.

Eleven GoodGym legends headed over to Hervey Road Sports Field Community Garden last night to help break new ground by planting lavender and with the ground baked dry after the recent weather, it wasn't quite as simple as digging a few holes.

We spent the evening getting diggy with it, carefully planting the lavender before giving every new addition a much-needed drink. Because when in drought, watering is every bit as important as planting, and we made sure the new plants had the best possible start in their new home.

A huge congratulations to Aman on joining the TaskForce, its brilliant to have you taking on this new role. And another big congratulations to Mark for completing his 10th Good Deed!

Thanks to everyone who came along for a lovely evening of gardening, teamwork and plenty of puns courtsey of Aman and Ivar.

Until next time you lavly bunch!

Rachel