Thanks to Alan and Laura for the title inspiration!

We had a lovely bunch this morning helping to get Greener And Cleaner's Community Garden set up. Laura arrived fresh from parkrun and David signed up last minute which was a nice surprise!

The garden is gradually taking shape and today we were tasked with the job of "laying the carpet" - removing weeds and putting down a load of woodchip by the shed.

Alan started off however by transferring a big container of water into the water butt using buckets before joining the rest of us troweling out weeds. Laura tuned into the sound of robin's - a nice accompaniment to our weeding.

Once that was done, we flattened it down - Alan had a neat Pac-Man style shuffle going on. Then we filled up wheelbarrows with woodchip and spread it over the now flatter patch of ground.

Great work, team! 💪

5 tip top GoodGymers met for a quick cleaning mish for Community House in Bromley. Community House is a base for loads of the more community-based council departments and other related charities so a nice place to be able to support!

We were left a nice note and some instructions for cleaning a good 50 or so chairs. We got stuck in straight away with some spraying, sponging and scrubbing to get the chairs fresh and germ-free.

Afterwards, we piled them back into the cupboard and had a little chat before heading off into the night...

Great job guys and gals 🔥

A nice, festive session last night! We were helping out Beckenham Park Care Home with some decorating.

First up, some of us met at the Bridge House (and shared our fave xmas tunes), a few people met at Shortlands Station and a few made their own way to the task.

It was a pretty long run for most of us (4.5k!) but a good way to warm up on a freezing cold night.

When we arrived, we were assigned to different parts of the care home to add festive flourishes:

🎄 Decorating a tree

🌿 Adding fake greenery to the stairs

🍽 Spicing up the dinner tables

🎀 Putting up beads and ribbons around photo frames and on the dog (see pic)

It was good to do an inside task in that weather although I'm not sure most of us expected somewhere so fancy...!

We smashed through it all in half an hour and went our separate ways.

Nice one team! 💪

For our second Tuesday evening Bromley sesh (🥳) we were at Southlands Road Allotments. Local sustainability charity Greener and Cleaner have inherited a space which they're turning into a community garden. There's a few fruit trees, a shed of sorts, a compost and not much else. The plan is to turn it into a thriving growing space where the local community can learn to grow and eat fresh fruit and veg! 🥕

Can you dig it?

Job one was digging a hole for a massive metal container. It's going to become an accessible growing bed but first needed cementing in place.

Gettin' twiggy with it

Meanwhile we needed to transfer loads of the twigs and branches from the top of the compost heap into the metal container. These will have compost added and then rot down.

Bottling it

Whilst this was happening, Jo and Clare were cutting up huge plastic bottles into a specific shape so that they can become strawberry pots!

Nailing it

The majority of the materials used for the community garden are repurposed and upcycled. Stephen was removing nails from some pallet wood using a hammer.

Cracking job team! 👍 Thanks for sharing your favourite veg and your energy to get this community green space up and running 💪 Special shoutout to Jo who attended her first GG sesh! Welcome to the gang.