Sugar Soap and Glory

You'd never have guessed the football and tennis were over because we had a MEGA group this week of 37 excellent people. Hooray!

That's good as we had two tasks to be getting on with.

The first group headed up to the Portico Gallery - 4km there and a longer run on the way back through the lovely park. Tom Benson tells us everything!:

We did a crack job of washing down a load of walls with sugar soap. John claimed it's one of the most underrated things and if he were Prime Minster he would make sure it got the recognition it deserved and also to bin Boris as well.

Sugar soap is one of the most underrated things! Said John

In 20 mins we had stripped the room and hallway and lathered the walls in some lovely sugar soap ready for the painting to begin. As always John was on good form and thanked us kindly. As we done good we took the scenic route home by taking a detour in London's finest park, Brockwell and then came back for some good stretches.

The second group headed through the park both ways to the magical South London Botanical Institute. This tiny oasis of botanical wonder is hidden near Tulse Hill. They have recently had some renovation work done and had moved all of their boxes of old pressed flowers and seeds upstairs. Our job was to form a human GoodGym chain and bring them back down again. Once complete, we had a look around the garden, which features poisonous plants, plants used for dye and all kinds of other wonders. We also looked at some of the dried flowers, which were collected 100 years ago! They have a lovely programme of events and it is certainly worth checking them out.

After some planks and lunges in the park, we did some stretches and then went to the pub for a well earned pint.