another couple of rounds of leafletting done to spread the word about rewilding Wanstead Gardens

Task owner Cedric was spotted zooming along by Linda taking a break during her leafletting session on Thursday with mine following on Friday.

soon this patch will be done!

In the spirit of #NoMowMay the Wanstead Community Gardeners and in particular Cedric created a leaflet to help convince local residents to help Mother Nature a bit more by a few little changes in looking after their gardens.

Next step, how to get the info to the residents.... up steps Goodgym!

So James & Peter joined Cedric for a jog round the target area. Couple of hundred leaflets and 3 miles later 2 boxes of leaflets were emptied.

The 3rd box was split up to be done in smaller sessions yet to come.

When the Wanstead Community Gardners needed some furniture moving to help them celebrate their 21st birthday of course Marian called in her reliable "Heavy Mob" GoodGym.

5 of us made our way to a local address where Peter picked up two tables, Ed popped another two on to a small trolley and James grabbed two chairs which left Linda and Sibel a cushion each and they thoroughly enjoyed the unfair division of labour 😂.

Back at The Corner House we met Helen and Cedric. Helen joined us setting up the tables and chairs before being called away to help the task owner with something. Cedric had brought some compost and disappeared off to deposit it somewhere useful to the community gardeners.

There was a little waiting around until the gazebos arrived but when they did we soon had them put up with a little improvisation for a couple of missing parts. We are nothing if not resourceful in GoodGym.

... they would have all sorts of stories to tell.

For the trees along the A12 in #Wanstead a LOT of the short stories would contain too many expletives to be able to print them, due to the frequency and volume of rubbish ending up in the undergrowth.

This has become a particular bugbear for Cedric, hence a little session this morning.

Walking past, one does not get the full picture of what is hiding in the undergrowth - we only got 25-30 metres down the path towards the Redbridge roundabout and filled up 13 bags of rubbish in about 2 hours.... few more sessions to come I guess!

P.S... and creative writers out there up for the challenge of making a story out of the underwear and shoes we found today?

As the title already hints at, this week it is the Great British Spring Clean... so a litter pick seems the logical choice of task for tonight.

Numbers kept changing, so in the end James & me were about to set off from base when the familiar smiling face of Cedric popped up to join in.

The council had been cutting back the vegetation at the station, so that seemed a good place to start, with better access to a lot of the beds there. From there we wandered along the edge of the slip road & A12 (safely on the pavement ofcourse) aiming to get to Redbridge roundabout.... but we came across so much rubbish along the way, it would take several daylight sessions and a few skips to clear up everything spotted down the embankment.

To our pleasant surprise the pathways through the roundabout were actually very tidy.

7 bags of rubbish are now awaiting collection by the council - job well done!

Perhaps a day early, but it felt just right to add a little Halloween to the Monday evening group session.... or was it just an excuse to dress up?

Sign-up numbers ran into double figures, perhaps down to the suggestion of a little social at the pub afterwards 😉

A few had to unfortunately pull out for various reasons, leaving 9 brave souls to venture out in the dark & misty world, searching for litter.

Linda took Helen & Sharon on a walk down the High Street, while Cedric took the running group to a quiet corner freshly mowed to clear some litter there before the group went round to the usual stretch along the A12.

A few bags and a jog round Leyton Flats later the crew reunited back at base, before strolling down the road to the local pub for a well earned drink.

P.S.... thanks to Elegia for the creative face painting!