On a balmy East London evening, task owner Alex welcomed us by Barge East for what must surely be one of the most seasonally appropriate GoodGym tasks ever. With temperatures hovering around 30 degrees, it almost felt like we were at the seaside rather than in the middle of Stratford/Hackney Wick!

Our mission at Bola Beach Tennis was to help maintain the three beach tennis courts. Over time, the sand gradually migrates to one side thanks to a combination of enthusiastic players and the wind doing its thing, so we spent the evening shovelling, moving and raking sand back into a level playing surface. We also swept around the edges of the courts and returned escaped sand to its rightful home.

Some of the group embraced the beach atmosphere fully and went barefoot, enjoying the rare experience of getting sand between their toes during a Monday evening GoodGym task in central London!

The evening's most memorable challenge, however, came in the form of a gigantic roll of astro turf that needed moving. Despite the combined efforts of almost the entire group (the only exceptions were Jo and Dan, who wisely remained focused on expertly levelling Court 1 ), it refused to budge. We wrestled with the stubborn, immovable object and eventually admitted temporary defeat.

We then spent a lovely half hour after the task relaxing with cold cans of pop from Alex (including sampling the Brazilian favourite Guaraná) and brainstorming increasingly creative solutions to the astro turf problem. Suggestions included: - A "toss-the-caber" style approach (from Lucinda) - Sawing it into smaller chunks (Reymon's practical engineering solution) - Dragging it flat like a giant parachute game (thanks Chloe!) - And finally the consensus view: it probably needs a crane or to be airlifted ?

Watch this space... the saga of the astro turf is (possibly) to be continued...

A huge thank you to everyone who came along and brought beach energy to East London for an evening. Hope you enjoyed your slice of Hackney Wick seaside life — see you all next week! 🌞🏖️💪

Returning to St Paul's for part two of the Shadwell church's summery refresh, five GGers put in a greyt shift painting the outdoor railings. The black paint was chipping away and Chloe, Kitty, Ilana, John and Sam dedicated two hours of a warm Saturday morning giving it a smart new colour.

The church leaders kindly provided coffee and pastries to keep us fuelled and plenty of conversation, about the outdoor gym classes the church's fitness team provides and their backstories of moving to the area from Germany, the States and other places. Many of them loved hearing about the work we do all around Tower Hamlets and we'll hope they can come along to a task as a GoodGymmer soon!

Earlier in the morning we also dealt with fallen leaves in the church grounds, using a battery-powered leaf blower and a good old fashioned broom.

Duckling watch for Goodgymers - a quacking good mission. Goodgymers swapped their running shoes to ducking views. Duck, duck and done.

Paul watched two broods - one an experienced mother who was surrogate to a dozen mallard ducklings. She really struggled and lost all but three, but was brilliant with those three, perhaps slightly over protective. They are all now grown up and part of a bigger group of adolescent mallards.

The other group was a shambles. There were seven ducklings. The male disappeared in week two and for several weeks, I saw no more than one or two at a time and never with the mother. I assumed the worst. But last week I saw the mother with five of them and yesterday with seven! She’s grown into the role!

Jacqui struggled to find any mallard ducklings but persevered and eventually, after numerous visits to lakes, ponds and rivers, found a family.

Sally watched 3 ducklings who were abandoned at around 2-3 weeks old and despite the odds being stacked against them with predators incl american mink, foxes and herons in the area, they are still going strong 9 weeks later and now feel like part of the family. Another group didnt fare so well and all 4 ducklings disappeared over a few days.

I rolled up fashionably late (OK just a couple minutes after kick off) to find Chloe already in the zone, wrestling weeds from the giant gravel quad like she was auditioning for gladiators. the sun was so ferocious that the white gravel should have had a sunglasses warning - how she didn't go snow blind is beyond me. What a legend. She was not alone in her heroics. Cue the dream team: a local granny and her 3 under 5's sidekicks. all armed with tiny trowels and huge enthusiasm. They put my gardening game to shame. I grabbed the shears and did my best Edward Scissorhands impression on the brambles, then moved on to excavating dead bushes.
The real workout came when we turned collective table carrying into a weight lifting session. nothing says community quite like 4 people struggling with the weight of a very large table - or 2. I had to dash off after an hour- Chloe, the trooper, carried on keeping up the good vibes and good work. massive thanks to James and Nicky for letting us join you on the amazing community garden journey. can't wait to come back and see what's growing. Rue