If it's not railings, it's pouring

28 Lambeth good deeders clear up the yard at Brixton Youth Centre and finish painting the railings at Southwell Road

This week it was meant to be torrential rain at exactly the time GoodGym was to set off from Brixton, so I was worried we would be low on numbers. Of course I had nothing to fear, as GoodGym are a hardy bunch and we are always up for it. And luckily for us, the big rain fell earlier in the day so we could get on with our tasks with a nice sunset to boot.

The BIG NEWS is that Lambeth is entering a scarecrow into the Lambeth Country Show - the theme being Rio All Stars, we couldn't resist. If you are heading there this weekend, then look out for Lord Sebastian Crow and sling him your vote! It was Dawn Gibson who came up with the name, give her a cheer! Dawn is also the winner of Lambeth's first ever SHIT PRIZE OF THE MONTH (SPOTM)! This prize will be handed out each month for a different reason and the prize is whatever Katie can get her hands on for free. This month, Katie was given free fish & chips for 2 from Olley's Fish Bar for the good deed we did there a couple of weeks ago. So, Dawn will be Katie's +1. Hooray!

The larger group headed 1mile down Brixton road to the youth centre, where we did a lot of clearing leaves from their yard. Not content with that task, Tom Benson took a makeshift mop to their roadside sign to bring it up nice and shiny. Once all black bags had been filled, we ran back to the local park and did speed work and planks, led by Alex. Nice and tired, we trotted home, happy that our good work was done.

A group of seven ran to Loughborough Junction to paint the railings on Southwell Road. We'd started the job a few weeks ago and the aim this week was to finish it off. Once the paintbrushes and cups of paint had been handed out we got to work. While we painted we chatted about George's trip to Sweden in August to do an ironman. We talked about how many outfit changes will be involved (fewer than expected) and decided that Sweden was probably a good choice as the Swedes are probably too polite for there to be any dirty tricks on the swimming portion. We also discussed our favourite Farrow and Ball paint colours, Elephant's breath anyone? We finished with a few minutes to spare so we had a chance to look at the garden, it looks so different to how it did a year ago when we went there to shift soil and now has some lovely blue railings to complete it's new look.