We were back at Ocean Youth Connexions to support Kamal for another session, helping keep the site in tip-top shape.

First on arrival, John, Sam, Kareem and first timer, Ken were set straight to work litter picking in the yard and clearing leaves. Meanwhile, Darren and I tackled the front of the building, pruning what we identified as a milkflower cotoneaster shrub, as well as clearing leaves and picking up litter.

A little later,Emma, Arina and Louise joined us. Louise deserves special credit for navigating a heroic bus journey to get there! They headed upstairs to clean and soap the doors, with Emma declaring it was “the most I've ever enjoyed cleaning doors!”

As summer fades, we couldn't help notice the darkness creeping in earlier than usual.It won't be long before the head torches make their seasonal return.

A special mention goes to Sam, John and Darren, who all took part in the Big Half on Sunday and still turned out to volunteer.

Finally, a big welcome to Ken on his first GoodGym task. We hope to see you again soon!

Solo Saturday mission at St Peter's Church where I joined our contact Anna and their groundkeeper John. It's been such a dry summer that many parched trees had shed their leaves already so the task involved using a blower and sweeping them up. John is a fellow fitness instructor and it was cool hearing about the class he puts on for the church community as well as his plans for a class for the homeless, a great initiative.

We're back at St Peter's for a big Monday night task with a social drink to follow on the 14th so hope to see you there.

Lucinda was in the North. Northern Emma had gone West. Others were watching Fulham or were off work sick. But Chris travelled over, despite a very early morning next day, and another six of us set to work collecting every last bit of litter from the Cranbrook gardens, front and back, as well as a huge number of leaves which had accumulated rather earlier than usual this year

Emma mounted the mound, Jo lifted litter, Adam pulled plastic out of trees, while Kareem filled bags with all kinds of debris. And as for Kitty – what can we say about the ever-cheerful Kitty who sauntered up to GoodGym one day on the Isle of Dogs and has never looked back – congratulations to her on her golden anniversary: 50 good deeds, just in time before she departs London for the shire counties – temporarily we hope…

The original idea was to help set up the family party for our friends at the canal club, not least so Tower Hamlets had a Saturday morning task that week

As it happened, we were involved in another task https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/setting-up-a-stall-for-the-cemetery-park-summer-fair-c49d2f87-92f2-412b-8628-5a61e8b8a8dc that morning, and coincidently, Sally from the canal club phoned on Wednesday to suggest we instead served coffee in the afternoon. Synchonisity!

So five of us turned up in dribs and drabs, to find the task had changed yet again – we were now looking after the barbeque! And it turned out that special guest Sooz from Hackney was a dab hand at turning chicken, halal skewers and sweetcorn, until they were just nicely cooked through the inside

Other useful attendees were Sam, despite a late night at the Queen’s Head in St Pancras, Ilana, who’d just knocked nearly a minute off her previous ParkRun PB (despite a lack of photographic evidence), and Adam and Emma, who stayed well beyond the call of duty in order to tend the barbeque and keep everything safe and sound.

Another enjoyable social gardening club with St Margaret's House. In this visit it was time to harvest the lavender and sort the leaf mulch cages ahead of the mulberry tree leaves dropping.

There was a bumper amount of lavender and with the sun shining out the front, it made for a fine spot to volunteer. Sam had to dash off early to see Odyssey (again) and Emma stayed on, getting into a crafty swing of weaving the lavender into decorative baskets.

Next month's social gardening club is on Wednesday 23rd September between 4-7pm.

Stress is prominent in our society, and now it’s affected the trees! The parched summer we’re suffering is no fun for our barked friends either, who are shedding their leaves before the schools have gone back. They know a thing or two about survival – one of the plane trees on the site is 280 years old – but the leaves are piling up and blocking the paths of St Matthew’s churchyard

So a squad of Goodgymers – some arriving earlier than others – converged on the premises to help Lady Andrea address the situation. A special welcome to new recruit Arina, who’s just joined her boyfriend in London, and was soon converted to GoodGym, after Mile End ParkRun on Saturday

We picked up, swept, gathered and bagged, all while catching up with news of padel and tennis, job hunts, shakshuka, pubs, poetry and property

Within an hour, we’d filled more large bags than I could count (but it was more than twenty-five). Just pity the man from Veolia who comes to empty the medium-sized rubbish bin and is confronted with our leaf-bag mountain. At least he’ll have a nice tidy church garden to look at…