Not money, sadly, but leaves and good vibes!

We met at the Bridge House, introducing ourselves and discussing our ideal scarf. A couple of people raised the concept of scarf-blankets, which sounds like a great way to keep warm!

Thankfully it wasn't cold out - just a bit damp, so we headed out to our task at St John the Evangelist Church in Upper Norwood. We've helped the church to lay mulch, cut back weeds and more in the past, but tonight they wanted some help with the leaf fall 🍂 from the lovely trees in their meadow 🌳

We also moved some bags of last year's composted leaves over to a planter 🪴 ready to fertilise some new plants, and then replaced the compost in the two bags with this year's leaves, filling them to the brim!

Sterling raking, team 🪴

Another classic mulching task last night, this time at St John's Meadow, a delightful patch of green attached to St John's Church in Upper Norwood. They've had limited volunteers so Jenny really appreciated some GoodGym muscle with a few gardening tasks.

We kicked off at the Bridge House with names and who we'd want to lead the country. Some excellent non-political people - probably the way it should be?! It was Marie's first session with GG Bromley - lovely to have you join us!

We did a wee warm up en route to the meadow which included a few cheeky slopes... 🏔

When we arrived, most of us got straight into some weeding (Nick was on watering duty) around some of the fruit trees. When they were weed free we barrowed some mulch down the hill and spread it round the trees. Now the weeds will struggle to get through, and the tree roots will get all the water and goodness from the soil. 👌

We took a long route back and had a nice stretch before calling it a day.

Ace work, gang :) 💥✌️

5ive?! No, there were 7 of us actually.

Tonight's run was to St John's Meadow, a nice green patch which is tended to by some church volunteers. It's just been a long weekend so instead of our usual Monday, we went for a Tuesday!

Just like old times.

5 of us met at the Bridge House, discussed what we'd been up to over Easter and then hit the road. We met Hannah and Kat at the church as well as Jenny who showed us our task.

A huge pile of woodchip (made up of branches from nearby plane trees so low carbon footprint...kinda 🙄) sat at the top of the slope and at the bottom there were some paths between the veg beds which were looking a bit weedy and muddy. Our job was to get the paths covered and clearly defined.

We split into little groups, grabbed shovels and filled up 2 wheel barrows and a big bucket and transported it down to the vegetable patch. Nick mastered manoeuvring the particularly weird wheelbarrow which was apparently just left at the church one time. 🤷‍♂️

We were particularly nippy and got even more path covered and raked than we originally planned.

Team work makes the dream work ☁️

Nice one, gang. ✌️

Pun courtesy of Steve

Four wise men started the evening discussing their favourite books before heading off to CP park for a brisk warm up and a route through the park to their task… Alas, just like last week our path was blocked… But we had a shorter diversion this time -phew!

We arrived at St John’s Meadow, a little green space by a big old church for some leaf based work!

Jenny and Robin had prepared a selection of rakes and a whole lotta leaves for us to clear up! The trees are huge so I’m sure we’ll be heading back soon enough.

Our task was to rake the leaves into piles (or a line in Ian's case!) and then transport them to the compost piles. We filled up one builders bag first, wheelbarrowed a bunch over and finished off by dragging a full tarpaulin over!

It seemed like loads of leaves but there were still plenty on the ground even after we’d finished.

A great workout to warm us up on a cold evening… Ace work chaps! 🍂🍂🍂

This week's group run was to the delightful St John's Meadow which was looking significantly greener and more fruitful than the last time we visited!

After discussing our ideal festival (which quickly moved onto favourite festival weather...), we had a 2km gradual ascent from the Bridge House to St John's, an impressive church in Upper Norwood supported by several huge wooden props. 😬

Luckily we were working in the meadow where Jenny and Helen had begun filling buckets and watering cans for an intense watering session.

💦🍂 Kat and I were delivering some much needed moisture to the compost heaps, helping them rot down further to be spread around the meadow at some point.

💦🌳 Allison and Clare meanwhile were blitzing the fruit and veg beds.

We finished off watering the fruit trees and even took a plum home each!

Nice one gang 👌

Today's task was all about the holly and the ivy, and more specifically saving the holly from the ivy.

We kicked off at the Bridge House announcing our Jubilee celebration plans - nothing that notable tbh... And then we hit the road, praying the rain wouldn't come down.

We were headed to St John's church. They've got a lovely meadow area which feeds bees and even has some produce growing for locals who want to get involved.

Hail No!

We got lucky and arrived dry as a bone. Sara explained our task - the ivy was starting to choke the holly, so get rid of the ivy around the holly, but not all of the ivy... because it still looks nice.

Armed with secateurs and many black bags we cracked on.

Ivy the Terrible

We had a solid 35 minutes of pulling and trimming and bagging. It was surprisingly therapeutic (and a good workout on the old guns). We had a few filthy finds - Maxim's "Red Bull" won the stink prize.

Baa Baa Black Sack - 15 bags full

Now the holly will be safe for a little while and it may even get some use in the church's Nativity services at Christmas?!

Still dry, we took a quick snap and headed back to base.

Nice one gang 💥