The sun was shining and there was some warmth in the air as five of us joined the Friends of Lesnes Abbey and Woods for their monthly community litter pick.

After a friendly welcome from the group, we split into smaller teams and set off in different directions to hunt down discarded rubbish.

With no fixed route to follow, we wandered the paths and let curiosity lead the way, with swathes of bright yellow daffodils making us feel that perhaps spring has finally arrived.

Thankfully, the paths we walked in the park and woods were pretty tidy, but our litter-picking skills mostly came into play along the road just outside the boundary, which was in need of some TLC.

After an hour of fresh air, gentle wandering, and plenty of nice chat we returned to the starting point with our bags of collected litter, ready for the council to whisk them away.

It was fantastic to welcome Alican and Karina to their very first GoodGym task! We hope you had a great time and we’re looking forward to seeing you at many more sessions!

It’s the first day of the Great British Spring Clean, and there are loads of litter-picking events popping up across Bexley over the next fortnight.

First up was Bexleyheath, where four GoodGymers joined the Love Where You Live community tidy-up co-organised by our friends at Discover Welling.

A large crowd in hi-viz set off on a 2.5km circular route around the roads surrounding the shopping centre. The bright yellow wave of litter pickers was quite a sight for shoppers and motorists!

We were so busy collecting rogue rubbish that we completely forgot to take photos along the way. Luckily we did manage to snap Ashton after he wrestled a stray blue supermarket wheely basket out of some very determined bushes. 🛒🌿

It was a lovely group to be part of, and somewhere along the route we completely lost count of the number of bags we filled between us.

Of course, we’d all much prefer it if people took their rubbish (and dog poo bags and cigarette butts!) home with them in the first place. But thanks to everyone’s efforts, the streets we covered are definitely looking a little tidier today.

It was full-on painting action at our monthly session at Holy Trinity Lamorbey Primary School last night.

On our previous visit we tackled two rather bold feature walls — one bright yellow and one deep claret — swapping the brash colours for something a little warmer. We're still debating whether the shade is technically 'cream' or 'magnolia', but whatever its official name, the school loved the new look so much they asked us back to paint the rest of the walls to replace their stark white.

We got busy with brushes, rollers and trays of paint, working in teams across the two classrooms. Impressively we mostly managed to get it all done within our allotted hour. Caretaker Andy will handle the high bits that were just out of our reach.

A second coat might still be needed, but the transformation is already clear to see.

Keeping a close eye on proceedings throughout was Brecon the school dog, who enthusiastically supervised, posed for photos and treated us to a few tricks. There were also a few musical interludes, with spontaneous renditions of songs from the musicals. (Oliver! and West Side Story proved particularly popular choices 🎵🎶.)

We'll be back again in April, so if you'd like to join the fun, come along! No painting experience required and we might actually settle the debate about the paint colour if we remember to check the label on the tin. Oh and singing is entirely optional.