As Sam opened up Old Spike Peckham, he was met by Richard who came for his first ever GoodGym experience as he wanted to get more involved with his local community on the days that would allow him. With his son, who practices karate on Wednesday nights, but had a week-off, Richard made sure he could be present and get his document checked for the DBS checks.

With Alex coming back from a weekend road trip to Berlin (to support England) and Emma getting ready for her trip to India in a months' time, we all contemplated on the lack of a summer in London. Yet, the night belonged to David, who on Saturday reached his 50th good deed, but we celebrated his milestone with the traditional black cape, ballon and party hat! Congrats David on reaching this first major milestone!

Sam got going with his usual speech and his ice-breaker tonight was about World Emoji Day as well as World Snake Day (which was the day before). The snap poll showed that half of us are afraid of snakes, but he also asked that: "What emoji would you be?"

🤗😬☺️🫶🤝

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Hampton Court edible garden

The eight of us headed out for a quick warm-up in the humid weather before dashing off to make it to Dawson's Heights in time. With Sam leading from the front and Maria back marking, we took it in our strides to make it to the top of the Overhill Road to meet Ellie and a few Dawson's Heights residents including a few of the young ones.

Ellie told us that they had a whole edible garden donated to them from the Hampton Court Flower Show. Although, the garden was beautifully re-planted, it still needed to be mulched, watered and have a woodchip path going through the middle.

Emma teamed up with Paulin to collect, wheelbarrow and dump the woodchip whilst Alex, David, Nelly and Richard collected bags of mulch to spread around the new garden and the existing garden beds. They all had a few little helpers as the young kids of the estate wanted to get involved where they could. Maria took on the last remaining job of watering all the plants, but needed to get the hose from the garage.

Despite the simple tasks we had, we still needed the full 40 minutes to finish off all three tasks. By the end of it, we had a thick woodchip path, all plants mulch and absorbing all the nutrients and minerals from it after being watered.

We said our goodbyes knowing that the next time we come back would be our last session in 2024. Emma and Richard dashed home from Dawson's Heights whilst the rest of us enjoyed the downhill run back to Old Spike Peckham.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night. It was our penultimate session at Dawson's Heights allotment after going there for four sessions prior. We have been a massive help in getting the allotment setup. Let's finish it off with a bang on the 7th of August. Kudos to all and if I don't see you next week, see you soon!

Last night 11 goodgymmers went to Elmington community gardens to help out. Sophie , David, Lindy, Nelly, Daryl and Alex met me at Old Spike to run there together. We did a quick warm up followed by an ice breaker question before setting off. The ice breaker this week was "What rhymes with woodchip?", which was surprisingly hard! We took the hilly route to Elmington community gardens, during which Daryl shared that he is the Strava local legend of Chadwick road! 👏

We arrived at the wildlife triangle just as Emma was walking her bike up the road and Laura was already there. Benjamin soon arrived on his fancy new bike. Catalina from Elmington community gardens split us up into groups and put us to work.

Daryl, Benjamin and Alex did pruning in one section of the estate. Sophie and Nelly did weeding nearby. Meanwhile, Emma, Jess and Lindy planted some wildflowers and weeded. And Laura and David did some pruning nearby. I floated in between, doing some litter picking.

Before we left, we tidied up after ourselves, putting the cuttings into the compost heap and then did the group photo. We were just about to leave... only to realise that Laura had been held up by a friendly neighbour, and had missed the group photo! After group photo number 2, we set off, most of us coming back to Old Spike, and onwards to our social in Peckham Rye park. 🌳

"I promise it will stop raining as soon as we start the run"...

On a Wednesday evening in late May, one would expect it to be raining cats and dogs all day, but the forecast was set for it to stop at 19:00... 👀

Arriving early to get change and open Old Spike, Sam spotted Paulin outside the Georgian wine bar having just ordered a coffee and pastry. He was thankful that everyone that signed up started to show their face despite the rain howling it down. Nathan was back from his Central American adventures and it was great to see Alex and Tony who hadn't been around for some time. Maria, Isaac and drenched Daryl arrived all before 18:45, so Sam got going with his speech and his ice-breaker question first which was to do with Cultural Diversity Day the day before: "What culture, that is not your own, do you appreciate or are obsessed with?"

Many chose European cultures like Italian and French, but we had some Mexican, Japanese, Mauri and thinking outside the box, coffee and drinking/pub culture.

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When it rains, it pours

Seeing that the Green was wet and uncut, Sam opted for the warm-up to be done in the alleyway as he proceeded to lead the group out and down along Peckham Rye park, cut onto Dunstan's Road before we all took our time to run up Overhill and then Underhill Roads. Thanks to Maria for backmarking. It all started off dry with a pause in the rain, but as we rushed up that hill the taps were turned on again.

We met James who cycled and Emma who walked from her house viewings with Ellie and the residents of Dawson's Heights. It was great to see Ellie again after months away and we were here to start on a project that was planned for last summer. The planters were already established from earlier in the week by Dentsu. Our task for tonight was to fill these planters with compost. Ellie had 40 out of the 90 bags, delivered earlier in the week, in her garage. The team all went over to work in pairs to haul them from the garage to the community garden space (about 20-25 metres) away utilising their sheer strength and a couple of sack trucks. This was all happening whilst Sam was putting on some mixed tunes and Maria opted to help with drilling holes in the planters to ensure there is drainage.

Once the team brought out the 40 bags, we filled the planters with the compost in minutes! Noticing that we still had 10 minutes left despite the rain bashing our bodies, we helped the residents re-plant herbs, fruits and veg whist James and Nathan sowed seeds hoping for squash and courgettes to grow, but expecting a giant bean stalk...

We ended the session with a quick weeding and pruning near the forest to ensure the berry trees could stand a chance to grow whilst Sam prepared gingerbread biscuit/cake that he brought back from his travels in Grasmere over the weekend. Breaking up the 6 big pieces of gingerbread into smaller sharable chunks, everyone enjoyed the delicacy of this famous little shop in Cumbria, but none other so than James.

After a quick group photo and our goodbyes, we took in the views from Dawson's Hill before rushing off downhill for a quick stretch and impromptu drinks at Nags Head.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night as it wasn't pleasant with the rain, but we made most of the situation! Kudos to all and if I don't see you next week, see you soon!