Saturday was community day at St Mary's church in Lewisham, a perennial Good Gym favourite. 3 hardy runners turned up, despite predictions of filthy weather, ready to help Sue and the team out with getting the churchyard ready for winter and the hope of spring.

The tasks were simple, get of the wild alliums and alkanet and plant bulbs, both more appropriate alliums and tulips. Despite stepping on many of the bulbs we were to plant, we'd soon cleared a vast space and got the bulbs in.

And St Mary's are one of our most generous hosts and afterward we were rewarded with some of Joy's lovely spicy squash and coconut soup, which warmed us all up again after an hour and a half in the cold.

After my parkrun, I decided to join a community mission at St Mary’s Church, helping to plant bulbs around the area. Sam, the gardener in charge, explained how deep we needed to plant each size of bulb. I really enjoyed being part of the community group, and at the end, we were treated to some very rewarding refreshments, including two delicious homemade cakes and some savory snacks.

Jacqueline and I after getting our legs moving at the local parkrun, (our first task) we headed straight to join this month’s community gardening day at St Mary the Virgin Parish Church. We met the lovely Sue who gave us our green-thumbed marching orders. Plenty of friendly regulars from the church were already digging in—literally—with one shared mission: help out and have fun doing it. Our tasks? A delightful mix of bulb planting, and the very satisfying mission of removing great hulking chunks of unwanted alkanet. Post-dig, we were treated to some divine homemade cakes and refreshments. Say no to that? Perish the thought. As a bonus, it was also one of St Mary’s Heritage Open Days (courtesy of the National Trust), so the church was open to all. We popped in for a well-earned wander and discovered the church’s fascinating history—because even gardeners like a bit of culture after cake. 😁

It was a rainy start to the task! After a team effort loading wheelbarrows full of wood chip and using it to lay a path, we moved onto planting snowdrops. After removing any allium (which is an invasive plant) we planted lots of snowdrops and bluebells which should all bloom soon, creating a lovely spring garden. We celebrated with some well- earned refreshments 😊.

It was a short run to St Mary's this eve and after a warm up of heads, shoulders, knees and ball which warmed up everyone's with all the laughter and smiles than actually bodies, it was time to head to the task!

Sue and Marion and the team are always very organised when we visit and last night was no different. We had a number of tasks to tackle which included: - raking the wildflower meadow - cutting back some overgrown areas - digging 2 big holes for the trees - wheelbarrowing compost - trying to work out why one of the graves has iron railings (that one was just me) - planting the 2 trees

It was such an honor to have this dignitary help plant one of the trees at St Mary's i.e. sprinkle a spade of compost on top! Thanks Vic - all in a days work and allowing us to use our pun we'd already thought of!!

After all our hard work, we were treated to cups of tea and sandwiches and biscuits in the church. If you're reading this St Mary's team, we are very grateful!!

Next week, we are heading to RUSS Community Housing and the task is going to involve straw. And we also have a social after - location tbc.

This Good Gymer is easily confused. Having turned up to the therapeutic garden at St Mary the Virgin in Lewisham to help dismantle the gazebos after the summer fayre they found the garden to be completely empty. Where was everyone? And was this the work of bad gym, sowing their customary misinformation?

No, fortunately, it was not: the wise heads at the church had take one look at the weather conditions and set up the fayre in the church itself. But much remained to be done to get the church back in order for the regular Sunday services: plants had to be packed away, tables had to be cleared, folded and moved to their cupboard, pews had to be rearranged, chairs needed to be packed up and banners needed to be taken down. The lovely team at the church is super-efficient though and it wasn't long before everything was back to normal and ready for normal service to be resumed.