After a drizzly start, the rain eased off just in time for a final push to clear the pile of wood chip that The Blenheim Arpley Estate Residents Association and GG teams have been chipping away at (pun intended) since the summer. In just over an hour, we redistributed many wheelbarrows' worth of chip across the various plant beds, taking extra care around the new spring shoots that have started popping up. Extra points definitely go to Mark for his speedy wheelbarrow manoeuvring skills! Nice to get a job done :)

GoodGymers Mark and Linda found a satisfying way of using surplus woodchip at Blenheim Arpley Estate when we spotted 25 recently planted saplings in need of tender loving care. The slender young trees – currently ‘sleeping’ before springtime arrives – all had protective guards but, after struggling to grow during last year’s heatwaves, several had become weakened or uprooted. Working with a small but mighty team of local residents, we used shovels and wheelbarrows to add a generous circle of mulch around each sapling to enrich the soil and prevent evaporation, holding important moisture around their roots over coming weeks. Special shout out to the youngest member of the crew who enthusiastically tackled all tasks… replanting stricken trees, replacing missing stakes and guards, adding mulch… and even had energy left for litter picking. Other areas of the community garden also received a tidy covering of woodchip and we will be back another time soon to finish shifting the rest of the pile. Smashing effort everyone!

It's nice to do goodgym with friends, but sometimes solo is the one. There was a lovely bunch from the Friends of Kelsey Park but I mostly just stuck by myself this time, at one with the brambles.

The task was to remove brambles that were tangling themselves up with the other plants and taking them over a bit. So armed with a pair of seccateurs (never know how to spell that word), I got as close as I could to the base of the brambles, putting them off growing more.

It was suuuper satisfying yanking down the really long ones that had reached up around the tops of the trees and I actually only got spiked a couple of times.

It's a bloody beautiful park, even in the rain (see pic), and was so nice to get out in some greenery for an hour.

As is customary in the south eastern pocket of London known as Crystal Palace, the first GoodGym session of the year was a Christmas Tree Scavenger Hunt - clearing the streets, reducing waste going to landfill/incineration and saving others a job.

Our team of 5 were in high spirits to start with until no trees appeared...

Fortunately, a good 45 minutes after starting our mission, one tree presented itself to us!

And then minutes later, nestled inside someone's garden... another! We nicked it anyway and shifted them up the road to the tree-cycling spot in/surrounding Mayow Park where they will be churned up into woodchip. Nice.

Top work gang. See you next year?

After quite a rainy day, it turned out quite a warm evening, and the ground was made softer for our little digging session.

We jogged to the park, met two more Goodgymers and Millie there, and loaded up a barrow with spades and spring bulbs.

Working after dark can sometimes be hard on the wildlife (no worms were harmed, only disturbed and then placed back in the freshly dug holes) but it's a bonus that it being after squirrel bedtime means they're unlikely to immediately dig the bulbs back up for dinner.

With it being a mast year, too (super bumper acorn crop) likely due to the hot summer stressing many trees into panic mode - the squirrels are already delirious and overstocked for their winter.

We happily dug, chatted about slow worms, running events for next year, and dinner plans - and placed tulips and snowdrops in a couple of places in the park, in little clumps, where with this unpredictable weather they could come up in February.

How many GoodGymers does it take to put in a few hundred bulbs? Only 4 apparently.

After a short jog we arrived in a dark Cator Park where Millie and Linda had hundreds of bulbs ready to go underground.

Linda showed us the best technique and we got to work, losing holes in the darkness and having a nice chat.

Doing it at night means the squirrels can't see where to dig them up - perfect.

After emptying a couple of huge sacks of daffs and tulips and some other ones too, we called it a night.

Top stuff.