Two groups of good gymers headed over to Luxmore Gardens - a walking group led by Marta and a running group led by Sarah. Once there, we first had a lesson in watering plants when the soil is very dry (answer is: very slowly!). Once Joseph had managed to open the manhole cover so that we could access the water, we proceeded with watering lots of the plants which hadn’t been watered for a few weeks, including some newly mulched roses. After doing some pruning and some more mulching, our job was done. Just in time for a quick group photo by the newly watered cherry trees and we headed back to Glass Mill. Next week we are back at Seniors, see you all then!

An abundance of Goodgymers (14 of us!) met at Plumstead as the dark clouds rolled in.... but our luck was in and we had a fine, fluffy-clouded day. Our walking route took us along the Ridgeway which follows the Southern Outflow Sewer, part of an 82-mile London sewage system opened in 1865. It was a big deal at the time and the Prince of Wales attended the opening of one of four new pumping stations ('Cathedrals of Sewage') at Crossness. Although there was rather an abundance of litter and fly tipping on the first part of the route, it's a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SNIC) and we saw some butterflies and dragon flies but no hedgehogs or rare carder bees. An abundance of conversation and laughs along the way too!

The next abundance was blackberries - a handy snack along the secret path to Crossness. There was an open day on at the pumping station and the lovely man at the gate let us into the grounds to see the courtyard and get a sense of what goes on although you need 2-3 hours for a proper visit on one of Crossness' Pumping Days.

On the return leg, we stopped for abundant plates of food at friendly Thamesmead Social - a lovely cafe on Southmere Lake. This was where the 'abundance portal' (which maybe had been transmitting its vibes across SE London already) is to be found... who knew? We dispersed in various directions at this point with some of us walking back to Abbey Wood station to get the Elizabeth Line home - with thankfully abundant trains on a Sunday!

The task for this week was straightforward in what we needed to do but logistically a little more challenging as we needed to spread out in groups across the surrounding area of Glass Mill.

Our task was to complete the health checks of the street trees for living that have been planted in the past couple of years. Armed with a form to submit and for some a device to measure tree trunks whether that being an actual tape measure or a 19cm hand, and a map of what trees we needed to tick off.

We managed to health check over 70 trees which is amazing work! The team at street trees for living are very grateful of our efforts!!

Congratulations to Paul for achieving the dizzy heights of 1,000 good deeds. We look forward to seeing you sporting your 1,000 tshirt soon!

This week at Charlton Manor Primary School, our task coincided with England playing in the semi finals of the World Cup so our numbers were depleted but we were a mighty few that turned up, happy to not to have to pretend to be interested in the match! Our ice breaker question tonight was to share three emojis that describe our day and so ensued lots of comments on frustrating meetings, long hours in front of the computer and generally looking a bit bug eyed 🫪🫪🫪 No wonder we love coming out to GoodGym every wednesday for that mid-week boost! ❤️

Our task for the evening was tidying up in the nursery garden, trimming the trees (not the threes, the trees 🌳) with some very stiff and rusty shears which sounded like a they were coming to the end of their life and gave us some laughs. Threes trimmed, and we set about clearing the little path, and creating more of a canopy and before long we heard the cheers for kick off which was our signal to be off so off we went our ways running back to our homes a little bit fitter, a little bit happier and a little bit more of a do-gooder!

Until next time 😁

Rachel