It's been a while since we last attacked the brambles at St George's Garrison Church and nature had fought back in the intervening months.

Armed with a somewhat bizarre array of tools, we resumed our battle against the prickly invaders, cutting them back and digging out the roots.

Twelve barrow-loads later we surrendered to the lure of the GoodGym picnic in the adjacent park.

Such a lovely way to spend a Saturday morning.

No gardening today but after a chat some of us headed into Woolwich where we had an impromptu catch up with some other GG peeps who were enjoying the Woolwich summer festival 😎

Saturday was a return to our regular haunt of St George's Garrison church in Woolwich. % runners arrived but, oh no, none of the site volunteers was in attendance. But this being Good Gym we weren't going to let that stop us and we set to work debrambling using our own tools and brute strength. Even without the regular tools we were still able to clear a good section of brambles, revealing as we went that something some of us had thought was a wall was actually a fallen tree, and overall the mission was still a success.

Saturday saw Good Gym back at the St Georges Garrison Church in Woolwich. The church was built in the mid 1800s for the Royal Artillery and has the distinction of having suffered bomb damage in both world wars.

Now much restored, the church's next project is the development of a Commonwealth and Gurkha garden and that's where Good Gym came in. Five of us arrived to meet organiser Tim who directed us to the mass of brambles at the back of the church. An hour or so's work later and another couple of square metres of brambles were chopped back and dug up to provide a bit more space for the new garden and then it was time for a well-earned cup of tea.

This is one of our favourite tasks and it's always a pleasure to help out at this wonderful place. Given the amount of brambles remaining I suspect we'll be back for more soon.

Another summer's Saturday found us haivng another session cutting, digging and wheelbarrowing brambles at the Garrison Church. I've not been for a while and noticed the huge progress over the last couple of months- we're much further down the hill than we were when we started 4 months ago. It's all downhill from here folks!

After over an hour of work (which I cannot pretend to have done much in) we gathered for an actual feast in the garden with yummy treats made by our skillful crew. We did battle with the wasps over the cheescake and strawberries....If you haven't seen Michael McIntyre's skit on wasps, here it is - enjoy. (I am most definitely a wafter with great capacity to upgrade :)

Thank you for a lovely morning everyone!

Keep an eye out for the events at Garrison - they show monthly films and have various other events that we can enjoy and potentially provide some stewarding support for.

Sign up for our next social for a fresh walk in Kent here!

A lovely group gathered at the garrison church to one again tackle the brambles. We are working hard with these visits to help prepare the south side of the church’s grounds for a community garden they have plans for.

The group got stuck in with a hilarious mixture of tools, only some of which were ideal for the task of getting the brambles back. We all felt the sting of the brambles and contemplated on the ideal thickness of a gardening glove, I will be on the hunt for some!

After a concerted effort to clear more of the brambles and many trips with the wheelbarrow to the graveyard of bramble vines, we called it a day and sat in the sunshine and enjoyed coffee, sweet treats and some lovely chats.

Thanks all gang, it’s looking very promising after our regular visits! Make sure to join us again soon, we have another community mission litter picking tomorrow on woolwich common, and a group run Wednesday starting in woolwich. Join the WhatsApp here https://chat.whatsapp.com/I6SyiPNnI968Zp00u2Zknh