With the mercury rising to around 33C, anything more than mild gardening exertion would have sent us spinning to the ground. Fortunately, this afternoon, Goodgym Tower Hamlets joined a well-organised and sensibly-paced gardening club at St. Margaret's House, in the Bethnal Green area of the borough.

The overall focus of this community mission: pruning and tidying up plant life overflowing from flowerbeds and creeping over walls. Our achievement: restoring the central garden courtyard and interlinked walkways to an informally neat standard. Nature tamed, but wild enough to introduce a touch of adventure within the relaxing, green backdrop.

Emily, the Operations Manager at St Margaret's House, greeted @Dan and @Emma with welcoming energy, clear instructions, and thoughtful precautions.

Firstly, the latter: Emily offered us sun-cream, presented us each with a foldable stool and demonstrated the cold drinking water fountain within the 'Mulberry House' building. Thus shielded, supported, and hydrated, we could proceed, slowly, to the areas of the garden where the messier and more dominant plants needed our careful, yet timely, interventions.

New bamboo shoots were snipped out with secateurs to avoid them taking over a narrow flowerbed. @Dan teamed up with another garden volunteer on this and had him enquiring about joining GG by the end of the session! An abundant jasmine plant was trimmed to prevent it cascading down into the bin store area (without stopping the sweet fragrance of the remaining stream of flowers wafting over us...). Leaves and debris left scattered by last night's storm were swept up and added to the compost piles (praise be to @Emma for her enthusiasm and imagination with the broom!). A large branch was snapped down to size small enough to lay extra layers upon a stack of logs (a.k.a. the "bug hotel"). Many assorted weeds plus one packet of barbeque beef-flavoured hula hoop crisps s were picked out from amongst shrubs and under the terrace chairs and tables.

And all this activity under the shelter of an effortlessly serene, giant mulberry tree, right in the middle of the St Margaret's House site.

Result of the session: well-maintained outdoor spaces brought back into orderly balance, ensuring this hidden oasis and off-shooting walkways continue to serve the busy St Margaret's House community with well-tended pockets of nature to pass through, mingle with and relax in.

Not just one single house, many buildings come together to make St Margaret's House a whole community arts and wellbeing centre. It fronts onto Old Ford Road, just along from the York Hall Leisure centre. Through its archway lie the hidden depths of its garden grounds, set within an intermingling of halls, offices, a chapel and much more...

The centre offers workshops, hosts exhibitions, organises events and rents space (and runs a vegan café and a shop); all activities promoting the transformatve power of the arts and community connection to boost people's physical and mental health.

The gardening club runs monthly, which is when GG Tower Hamlets has been pitching up to help. A special additional community mission could be lined up before July's session: to help assemble a new bench and stain some existing outdoor furniture (keep your eye out for the details if that sounds like your bag).

That task, and the regular July gardening club, will prepare the site in particular for a memorial event thereafter. The memorial is in honour of a former St Margarets House Finance Director, who died a year ago, and who enjoyed the garden here. So, a chance to contribute to a spruced-up setting for their team to come together in remembrance.

Returning full circle now to the welcoming energy of leader Emily, matched by the other gardening club volunteers, the wider centre's staff, and its visitors, all making their way around the site. Passing along the neatened paths bordered with freshly trimmed and tidied greenery and the wildlife it sustains, the volunteer team received many a nod, a smile and a thank you for our efforts.

At the heart of the main garden is growing St Margaret's special source of cooling shade, cast by its great height and swaying mass of verdant foliage. The huge mulberry tree offers comfort and plenty of natural stimulation for the body and the mind. It is a gently towering, mature specimen producing the darker mulberry fruits, like a cross between a raspberry and a blackberry.

Emily explained how this tree and many mulberry trees were planted around east London in the late seventeenth century, by the Huguenot weavers arriving from France. Silkworms eat exclusively on the leaves of mulberry trees, hence their practical, natural support to their creative silk textile industry.

The fruits on the St Margaret's mulberry tree grow on the higher branches, proving difficult to harvest. But, for now, it still brings plenty of perspective through its stature, and the occasional drop of mulberry rain to keep the St Margaret's community nurtured and intrigued 😀 It felt like a useful boost of inspiration for a revived spirit to rouse this pair of GG volunteers.

With our main contact Janet sadly unwell, we wondered whether we’d ever be returning to one of our longest-established tasks, at Cranbrook Community Centre. With a strong focus on inclusion and affordability, the centre provides everything from music and parties to fitness classes and prayer groups, but they do need our help to keep the entrance garden tidy

We were summoned back to the centre by Abdul and Linda, who are looking after things while Janet recuperates at home - it was good to hear she’s out of hospital. And our old friend Eileen was still there to hand out rakes and cutting tools, and to give instructions. There was plenty to do, with a mess of leaves and twigs to be raked up, overhanging bushes to be cut back and rubbish to be collected, and the heat had dissipated – for now. We even used our botany skills (and Google Lens) to identify a rather nice white-flowering plant, who’s name I’ve already forgotten. But it was an attractive plant anyway…

A special welcome to Adam, doing his first ever good deed! I trust we made you feel welcome, and hope to see you again soon. Welcome back Grove Road Emma, who’s been busy wrecking her flat, and it was also good to see Bonner Street Emma, who wasn’t feeling good, but visited briefly just to say hello. Get well soon, BS Emma

Eventually we very gradually dissipated, progressively splitting into ever smaller groups, but we’ll be back together at the Cemetery Park next Monday

The award-winning community garden at the Canal Club brings residents together, supports biodiversity and provides a shared green space opening onto the Regent’s Canal. A notification by our former Area Activator and chief motivator Laura, that she’d be hosting a weekly palates session there reminded us that we hadn’t visited the centre for some time - and we hadn’t caught up with Laura for a while either

On arrival, she bounded out to greet us, as fresh and full of energy as ever. But we had work to do – those pesky weeds had pushed their way up between the paving stones, making the front of the centre look rather untidy

Several of our number arrived fresh from the shindig weekend, enthused by meeting GoodGymers from around the country, then finding they couldn’t wait more than 24 hours for more GoodGym, Before we got going, Darren wanted to know which ice cream everyone prefers, which can only mean he’s planning to treat us all with our favourite selection at next week’s task. We also congratulated Tom on his 50th Good Deed!

Meanwhile, using a variety of tools, we each found our own way to liberate the weeds from their trap between the stones, laying them cosily in a wheelbarrow and transporting them to a nice new home, reunited with their friends in a compost pile next to the canal

An hour later, there wasn’t a weed to be seen. And the nice plant we’d been told to leave alone, was left untouched, safe behind its nicely-drawn chalk line. After catching up with Laura, who made GoodGym Tower Hamlets what it is today, we sampled task-owner Sally’s lemon drizzle, and were expertly served tea and coffee by our Louise, before some of us headed for the pub to complete our evening

The Canal Club, however, is currently proposed as a site for development. It was built for residents of the Wellington Estate and its activities include toddler storytelling, baby dance classes, Tai Chi, knitting and sewing, outdoor pizza making, breakdancing, line dancing, karaoke social evenings, a science homework club, singing, refugee activities, a food bank, arts and crafts, and Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. There is a ball park and a children’s playground

This is not an empty site! Call on the council to remove the site from its accelerated housing scheme by signing the petition at https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/save-our-space-e2-save-the-canal-club

This session supported The Felix Project at its Poplar warehouse, where volunteers help sort and manage donated food for redistribution across London. Its Poplar depot was designed to rescue and distribute 2,780 tonnes of food a year, the equivalent of 6.5 million meals.

The task involved working through two picking lists across both the ambient and chilled zones, assembling substantial food orders for charity and community groups. Items included sacks of potatoes with specific received-by dates, trays of cabbages, green beans, Driscoll’s blackberries, milk with use-by dates, quince, baby gem lettuce, vine tomatoes and mushrooms, all of which had to be checked, categorised and placed accurately.

Once both orders had been built on large wooden crates, each load was wrapped securely in cellophane to prevent anything shifting in transit. The final step was using a powered pallet jack to move the two heavy loads, each weighing around 300kg, to the correct collection zones safely and efficiently.

The session finished with a final sorting task, reorganising packets of number-coded, recipe-specific ingredients so that each crate contained one complete set. It was a satisfying and practical mission and I look forward to coming back soon!

This time, we had a plan. A five-point plan! Complete with a treasure map!

Point 1:* Clear bindweed from the flower bed*. Once Ilana had found out what bindweed is, she joined Emma (new Emma), Jo and Lucinda in untangling said weed from the greenery

Point 2 : Litter collection. There wasn’t any litter. So we didn’t bother with that one

Point 3:Lawn maintenance: Identify and fill in any holes in the lawn and make the ground level and safe to walk on. Sam and "tree-hugger" Darren made themselves useful, identifying so many holes that they hadn’t got enough earth to fill them. But the ones they did fill, did indeed make the ground very safe to walk on. No-one was tripping over holes at all

Point 4: Path Clearing: sweep the paths. We let Dan use the big broom, to celebrate his 50th good deed. He also used a trowel to de-weed the edgings. This was something we were working on last week, after which the Bishop of Stepney, no less, remarked on how tidy the gardens looked!

Point 5: Woodchip removal: clear loose wood-chippings off the lawn surface. This was as a result of a tree which had been chopped down after becoming hollow inside. I undertook this task, along with enthusiastic young Ivo, who’s looking for new outlets for his enthusiasm and is planning to take the necessary training to join GoodGym Tower Hamlets Task Force!

Because one of our number (a Task Force member!!) arrived late, I had to keep everyone behind for an extra ten minutes’ detention at the end.Or more truthfully, they were so engrossed in their tasks, it was hard to get anyone to finish. But we eventually got people together for a photo, taken by a random passer-by who enthusiastically took a GoodGym promotional flyer away with him. So maybe he’ll be around for his first good deed, when Dan moves on to his 51st!

A new task took GG Tower Hamlets to St Paul's Church in Shadwell to join their Saturday morning session. it was the first part of a project to give the church a makeover. Lots of members of the church were there and it was nice meeting Briget, Jo, David and Rachel to name a few.

One of the tasks was giving the beautiful stained glass windows a first major clean in a decade to make them shine again. GoodGymmers Sam and Sree both set up at a section of the windows with soapy water, window cleaning spray and cloths, and step ladders to reach the high points. It was a really nice task with music playing, new community faces to meet and coffee and croissants to keep us fuelled.

The second phase of the refresh takes place in July and it'll involve some work in the gardens. https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/gardening-and-diy-at-st-pauls-shadwell-39b5abb8-33bd-4a05-92f5-2d1ae443755b