We were off to Twickenham on Monday night to meet Emma from Box Walks. Box Walks for those not in the know are a Richmond based charity that takes the now iconic but now unused red phone boxes and turns them into interactive nature walks. Back in the summer, we had taken a tour of the Richmond boxes, and now it was time to take on Twickenham.

Our job for the evening was to give each box a clean and keep them in ‘box fresh’ condition. A quiet Monday night in Twickenham might not be the usual idea of ‘painting the town red’, but armed with cleaning spray and wipes, dusters and brooms, and tins of iconic post box red paint, we got to it. We started with ‘Cara The Climate Change Box’ before heading down the Green to ‘Ralph The Resource Circularity Box’.
Some of the boxes needed a bit more TLC, with graffiti, stickers and other unorthodox anti-social behaviour needing some clean up too. If we weren’t going red, we were influenced by The Rolling Stones, and were painting it black. Fun fact, the Stones have a well connected history with Twickenham having had residency on Eel Pie Island, and playing sell out shows at the stadium!

Once we’d completed the two boxes on the green, and completed the quizzes for each box (did you know that less than 10% of our rubbish is actually recycled?!), we made our way along Heath Road to the Church Street box, ‘Polly The Pollinator Box’, before getting her all sparkling spick and span.

A successful evening of doing good, getting fit and educating ourselves. Thanks to Adam for leading the runners, and welcome back Louise who was visising for the evening from deepest darkest East London!

It was a bright and fresh morning in east Twickenham as 4 GGers met up at Marble Hill Park for our Saturday mission at the playground.

Task owner Kelly was on hand with tools and instructions, as the sun got warmer and more cheerful. Adam and Manuela got going on lugging logs to a storage area with the aid of a wheeled cart, soon joined by Sabina, while JP (minding a sore back) began with a litter pick before giving the sandpit and woodchip a good rake.

We all then gathered to help with the straightening of some fencing before a quick group pic and off to our various Saturdays

It's that time of year when the headtorches are back out, ready to plot out the often varied surfaces of Richmond as we run around! But before we switched them on we celebrated Sam hitting 10 GoodGym deeds 🥳

A lovely chatty run along the riverside then back into town to avoid the slippery post-tidal silt brought us to the Buccleuch Arcade in the dark. No time to get cold though as we carried out a bodyweight workout of squats, shadow boxing and lunges before getting equally stuck in to cleaning up the arcade removing debris from the shutter gulleys, sweeping, de-cobwebbing and breaking down the compost heap into smaller pieces. Lovely work all round 🕸️🧹

The rain held off for Manuela and JP to visit Mrs O for some garden maintenance.

The task was listed as grass cutting but the absence of a lawn mower - or indeed any grass, as the lawn was mainly composed of moss - rendered that idea a little challenging.

Instead we gathered the available tools and set ourselves to a general tidy up, raking up the leaves on the lawn and in flower beds and doing some weeding in the beds and on the patio.

Then work was satisfying and we soon managed to fill 4 bags with the leaves and weeds we had gathered.

Mrs O was very satisfied and keen for a repeat experience with GoodGym!

It was a hand-some Saturday morning on Richmond Green as our dedicated squad of GoodGymers rolled up our sleeves for a rather delicate mission! While brooms are great for hard surfaces, the tiny, stubborn litter tucked into the grass and gravel around the benches requires a much more personal touch.

There was no sweeping this under the rug—we had to get right down into the details, hand-picking every last cigarette butt and microscopic piece of rubbish that usually gets missed.

Armed with gloves, sharp eyes, and ultimate patience, we combed the ground around the benches finding rogue cigarette butts everywhere, but we made sure to nip every single one in the butt! From tiny bits of plastic wrap to microscopic debris, our fingers did all the heavy lifting. We left no stone—or bench slat—unturned in our quest for a spotless green. After a thorough session of bending, stretching, and precision picking, the perimeter around every bench was left looking immaculate and pristine.

It was a seat-sational team effort, proving once again that many hands make light work (and clean greens!). Massive thanks to everyone who lent a hand—we really cleaned up our act down to the very last cigarette butt!

A little bit eerie, a mysterious warmth in the air, head torch lights bounding along pathways, ten heads poking about, breaking cobwebs and disappearing around corners and popping back out on the main road again... Such was our return trip to litter pick at Petersham Common. So much more had been chucked from cars in the interim that by the end, we had bulging bags that should never, ever have ended up in nature.