Wow it gets dark early these days...very much a head torch lead litter picking session this evening with the Friends of Chandos Road, where our hosts Mark and Leela were pleased to see Rebecca, Ciarán, Tendai and Nick arrive ready to get picking.

The area we focused on was near the recently planted Flower Meadow, and for which (great news) the Friends of Chandos Road have secured additional funding to expand the meadow (for which they may well need some volunteer assistance to lay turf, plant seeds etc...watch this space).

With darkness now upon us, we split into smaller groups each with a bag and litter pickers and got going as best we could in all directions. A large pile of cigarette butts occupied Rebecca and her group for a long time, whilst the other group encountered the remnants of an extensive buffet and a lot of bottle lids which needed some effort to prise them out of the ground...

Before long we had three pretty full bags of rubbish, and so called it an evening - with litter pickers returned, and Rebecca kindly agreeing to take the rubbish bags to her nearest large bin on the way home, we were thanked by the team for our efforts and headed off into the darkness.

Next week we're at the Hackney Marshes Adventure Playground to help Ange with whatever she's got planned...it might involve sand, logs, bark or wheelbarrows...

Our (now regular) return to the Crisis Warehouse this evening to find out what Chris had in store for us - and as always he had a long to do list, and a seven strong group of willing volunteers keen to get their hands dirty, and as it turned out their shoulder, arms, hands and knees, always bend with the knees..., a pretty good workout.

Before we got there though, it was a warm welcome to first time GoodGymmer Charlie, and a hello again/welcome back to Rebecca - both of whom joined Graham, Hilary, Paul and Nick on the run from Freaks and Geeks to the warehouse, where we then met up with Irina.

After a quick briefing and intro from Chris, it was down to work, which tonight involved a lot of moving of cages full of sacks that had been delivered from the various Crisis Retails shops around London, and which contained clothing items that the shops had deemed no longer "sellable" on the rails due to the change from summer to winter, or that had simply not proved attractive to the buying public.

With Hilary and Charlie on lift duty, the rest of us were tasked with collecting the cages on the upper floor and parking them by the lift - at which point we headed downstairs to do the unloading and sorting into summer/winter cull, shop specific summer/winter keep, and various miscellaneous other bags which required a whole new categorisation and parking area.

Fair to say this kept us all very busy, doubly so when Chris opened the loading bay door to reveal a van full of more bags that Irina quickly got round to emptying into yet more cages, and which the rest of us then sorted into the relevant piles. Once this was done it was then a case of loading the now sorted bags into cages, parking them by the lift and getting them back to the upper floor where Graham and Rebecca were in charge of parking.

With darkness descending, and the clock ticking way beyond 8pm, Chris produced (from somewhere) one final large wooden pallet full of bags, which we quickly got sorted and caged...and we called it an evening.

As always Chris was extremely grateful for our collective efforts, as he outlined his master plan to us for the most efficient way to manage the storage and distribution of all the bags - we'll be back in a month's time (27th October) to further progress his vision...

Our friendly host Fleur was pleased to see us at the garden this evening, having earlier messaged to say she had her hands full and might not be able to make it - but all worked out fine, and Graham and Nick, who'd had a very pleasant chatting speed run and catch up from Freaks and Geeks, met up with Kyra at the garden bench just as Fleur arrived with both keys for the lock up and clear instructions for this evening's episode of GGN gardener's world.

We were guided to behind the bike shed (...) where there was a long patch that needed weeding and tidying, and then further along the same border to do much of the same on the other side of the path. Issued with gloves, forks, and eventually the trusty wheelbarrow, we were soon down at weed level removing much unwanted grass, weed looking plants, the occasional bulb (since replanted), and many many snails, as well as catching up on our respective weekends, and discussing with the other Wild Green volunteers what else we get up to on our Tuesday evening sessions.

As we discovered last week, it gets dark round these parts earlier and earlier these days, so it wasn't long before we'd got as far as we could see and do without accidentally removing someone's lovingly cared for seedlings, and one final tip into the nearly overflowing compost bins and we called it an evening. As always the friendly volunteer team were grateful for our help, and with now clear beds, they'll be able to turn their minds to planting bulbs ready for spring.

A welcome return to see our host Taiwo at the Greenway Orchard, who had forewarned us that we'd be doing a lot of digging out of roots this evening to try and stop the brambles and everything else that we've spent the summer successfully removing from the flower meadow, growing back anytime soon, and had borrowed some more forks specifically for the job in hand.

It was also a warm welcome to Rebecca, who joined Hilary, Adam and Nick on the 3km run from Freaks and Geeks and admitted her last GoodGym session had been quite a few years ago, and to Kyra, who met us at the Orchard and for whom this was her first GoodGym mission...and conveniently local. Welcome both, and hopefully you'll be able to join us on more tasks around the neighbourhood over the coming weeks and months.

Armed with gloves and forks and a few other instruments of plant torture, we quickly got to work on root removal, realising that with sunset at 7.15, it would also start to get dark pretty soon - we're clearly back into headtorch season once again.

A huge amount of effort was applied by the team to remove as many of the roots and plants as we could, some proving more resistant to removal than others, and requiring a combination of forks, hands and sheer grunt to get them out of the ground. Adam proving that even the hardiest of forks was no match for some of the embedded root networks...

With darkness now upon us, and with aching backs and tired hands, we called a collective stop at 8pm, leaving behind a patchwork of disturbed earth and a healthy pile of uprooted brambles and plants to be added to the compost heap.

We plan to be back again at the Orchard at the start of November, with lanterns and spotlights, and hopefully not too much regrowth in the intervening weeks...

Tonight’s task was a bit of a heavyweight — helping an isolated older person clear out an old, broken fridge from her second-floor flat so it could finally make its way to the bins. There was some initial uncertainty about quite how enormous this fridge might be, so we were relieved to discover it wasn’t quite the monster we’d imagined! That said, getting it down two flights of stairs still required a fair bit of teamwork, careful manoeuvring and, ultimately, a good old wrestle with the fridge. Once we’d negotiated the stairs and got it safely outside by the bins, the job was done. Our task owner was incredibly grateful for the help, and we were very pleased to have been able to help her.

Why was there a discarded chicken leg? Why was Nick holding it? What role did it play in the fridge removal operation? Frankly, we have no idea. Some questions are best left unanswered.

Great to be back at Emmanuel Parish Church for another evening in the gardens, Paul, Graham and I taking a gentle jog over from Freaks and Geeks.

Given the recent dry weather, the ground is currently too hard for any planting, so we concentrated on giving the gardens a good general tidy-up, with plenty of litter picking and leaf sweeping. We made a very satisfying difference to the garden — a good bit of tidying can go a long way!

A particular thank you to Paul, who went above and beyond this evening and helped us out with some of the less glamorous aspects of the task. 👏

And, as promised, Sybil and the Emmanuel team gave us a very warm welcome with the usual supply of post-task refreshments. 😋

We'll be back soon, hopefully after some rain allows us to do some autumn planting!