Our green-fingered contact Sybil at Emmanuel Church invited us over to St Mary's Allotments to help get the site spick and span ahead of their Cabin Open Day on 18th July — and for once we got to see the place in glorious daylight! Three of us — me, Adam and Eugene — jogged down from Freaks and Geeks to get some extra kilometers in before the graft began.

There was plenty to be getting on with: creeping ivy to cut back, weeds to chop and clear from around the social area where the plot holders hoped to expand their gathering space.

We tackled the area under a magnificent plane tree first, setting about the carpet of dried leaves and weeds — raking, bagging and clearing until the ground was transformed. With that conquered, Adam spotted the creeping ivy that had been quietly plotting a takeover of the fence line and embarked on a side quest that proved difficult to drag him away from. There's always one more strand of ivy, apparently.

One thing the task description didn't mention: the dust. Every armful of dried leaves sent up a cloud of it, and before long the allotment echoed to a chorus of sneezes. But by the end of our time there we had a dozen or so bulging bags of garden waste lined up under the tree, a beautifully cleared social area, and fence lines on the way to being liberated from their ivy overcoats. The before-and-after is genuinely satisfying, and the space is looking ready to welcome visitors on the 18th.

As is tradition, Sybil's legendary generosity appeared right on cue at the end of the task — this time in the form of mac and cheese croquettes and spring rolls amongst other things. Seemed like an excellent idea at the time, less so on the run home. Worth it though.

Huge thanks to Sybil and the plot holders for having us back and working alongside us — it's always a pleasure, and as Sybil says, it shows what can be done with a bit of effort, determination and teamwork.

If you fancy getting fit while doing good in Newham, come and join us — new faces always welcome!

A straightforward (if a little on the warm side) medicine pick up and drop off from the very efficient Royal Docks pharmacy - my routing to Mrs P's took me directly under the flight path for London City Airport, and my timing was perfect in that just as I crossed the bridge a jet took off overhead. My landing at Mrs P's to hand her the meds was also on time..

This week we returned to the Independent Newham Users' Forum (INUF), the user-led mental health charity based at Ithaca House in Stratford. INUF's community hub hosts drop-ins, yoga, art, dance and all sorts of wellbeing sessions, and the garden provides a calm, therapeutic space for everyone who uses it — or at least it will do, once we've been able to help get it back into shape.

A brilliant turnout of GoodGymers arrived to find that the back of the garden had been making the most of the summer sun. Brambles scrambling over the walls, buddleia with ambitions of becoming a tree, and nettles claiming a fair amount of territory. This week's mission: get right to the back of it all and take the space back.

We got stuck into weeding, pruning, sawing and bagging. Highlights included:

• Taming the buddleia and blackberry brambles along the boundary wall
• Giving the olive tree a much-needed haircut, with some impressive saw work on the lower branches
• Digging out weeds by the root — one heroic root ball very deserving of the photo
• Cutting back the nettles and undergrowth around the compost bins so they're actually reachable again
• Filling an impressive fleet of black bags with green waste

Special shout outs this week: to Lucinda for some cross-border GoodGymming — thanks for lending Newham your trowel skills! And it was lovely to see Steven and Bianca back at the garden — clearly the assorted weeds didn't put them off last time.

By the end of the evening the transformation was plain to see: the back of the garden went from a bit of a jungle to a clearer, open space, with a liberated olive tree and more room for the peaceful, welcoming garden INUF's community deserves.

Thanks to Pat at INUF for having us — we'll schedule a return for September - and a huge thank you to everyone who came along. These sessions can only happen if we have INUF volunteers (sorry), so please keep coming back!

It was a welcome (and long overdue) return to the Crisis at Christmas Warehouse near Canning Town this evening for Hilary, Graham, Adam, Nick, and good to see Peter who'd crossed the border from Redbridge, and our first group task indoors for a few weeks - definitely no sunblock required.

Our host Chris, who heads up the Retail activities at the Crisis warehouse, met us at the entrance (having arrived only a few minutes earlier as he'd been on shop delivery duty in Wembley and Walthamstow during the afternoon) and clearly had a long list prepared of what he wanted us to get done in the hour.

First task was to unload his van of boxes and bags (the latter sorted into cages by shop location and content description). Once that was done, we split into smaller gangs to get on with breaking up boxes, shifting empty cardboard boxes ready for packing, and stacking boxes ready for distribution. We then split again into emptying various pallets of items to clear space to create storage/space in the warehouse, and doing a count of items in bags (guesstimates permitted) - at which point we were given a 3 minute hydration break, sponsored by some previously donated cans of drink, before being marshalled around to the bagging area ready for the final quarter.

Chris would usually need to do a stock take of the number of items/bags each month, but this had been done by some other volunteers last week, albeit they hadn't quite completed the task and/or their tarpaulin laying skills hadn't been completely successful. Working in the Elephant and Castle and Camberwell shop cages it was a case of removing numerous sacks of clothes as a chain gang to get full access to the stack of winter clothing bags in each, and doing a (rough) count of the number of bags in that cage, before then covering with a tarpaulin, as these items don't get distributed to the Crisis high street shops until autumn is on its way.

With that task complete and the totals marked and taped to the now firmly secured tarpaulins, we had a final debrief/story telling session (mind your feet, otherwise they'll be all yellow...) from Chris, and arranged a return visit with him for August.

"I can honestly say you've been the best volunteers I've had today"...

An almost perfect evening for a pleasant 3k social run and return visit to the communal gardens at Wild Green E13, where this week we were tasked with weeding the "mural bed" (aka disturbing yet again a lot of snails), and after being given a crash course in weed identification ("take out all the ones with the big rabbity ear style leaves"), and armed with an impressive collection of trowels, and a wheelbarrow to use as the collector of said ears and anything else that could be composted, Hilary, Graham, Brad and Nick got to work.

We had an audience, as the evening sunshine had brought out the crowds to enjoy the park and gardens, and we received quite a few compliments from the benches on the great work we were doing to keep the garden neat and tidy - our hosts were equally delighted with our efforts, and once we'd got the weeding done, it was time to water the vegetable patch in advance of the forecast hot spell later this week - Graham discovered the Edvard Munch "Scream" watering can was surprisingly accurate...After an equally pleasant run back, we decided Hilary's birthday of last week needed celebrating, and conveniently our run had finished right outside the pub...always great when a plan comes together.

We'll be back again to help out at the gardens on 4th August - more watering, weeding, composting and whatever other tasks that Fleur and her friendly colleagues need doing to keep this particular community garden in excellent condition.

A small but mighty crew gathered for this week’s GoodGym Tuesday evening spectacular, with a few of us squeezing in a sunny loop around West Ham Park before the main event. Legs warmed and spirits high, we made our way to Barnard Grove to meet Carol — our task owner and the long‑time guardian of the two big planters that she has been maintaining diligently for the last 30 years or so.

The planters had become a bit wild lately, with overgrown greenery and a couple of unwelcome bushes muscling in. Carol gave us the lowdown, we cobbled together an assortment of tools and got stuck in.

The team made quick work of cutting back the messy, overgrown foliage, revealing the shape and structure that had been hiding underneath. Meanwhile, a determined subgroup took on the bush — the stubborn one that clearly had no intention of leaving quietly. After plenty of digging, tugging, and tactical discussion, we admitted we needed reinforcements. Cue a quick dash to the shop, returning triumphantly with an axe and a pry bar like a pair of DIY superheroes.

Armed with the new kit, we gave the bush a fierce battle. It put up a fight, but we made serious progress and left it significantly less smug than when we arrived.

Throughout the evening we got a few encouraging comments from passers‑by, which added a nice boost as we worked. By the end, the planters looked far tidier, Carol was pleased, and we’d earned that satisfied, pleasantly‑tired feeling that only comes from doing good with good people.

Another rewarding GoodGym session — teamwork, fresh air, and a bit of improvised tool‑based problem‑solving. Perfect.