After what seems like endless rain this year, today we enjoyed a crisp, dry evening - perfect for a spot of bramble bashing. With head torches on and spirits high, the team gathered to tackle a brambly jungle that had been growing way too confident in its ability to take over the space earmarked for pollinator planting. We met Georgina, Kingston's new Biodiversity Officer, who talked us through the task and handed out much needed gloves, loppers and waste bags. We were also joined by a local councilor and a couple of willing local residents - all help welcome so thanks for the extra muscle!

It's always amazing how much can be done within an hour when many hands work together. We lopped, hacked, yanked, ripped and dug our way through the mess of thorns and, although not 100% clear, made a massive impact on the patch. This was certainly a satisfying task even if it did leave a few rips in clothes and our skin got some free acupuncture.

Excellent work team!

We can tell the seasons by our trips to Kingston Pantry as we go every three months. It was a cold and rainy eve when we ran, cycled and walked to Kingston Pantry so it's definitely winter! Claire even ran with her umbrella to try and keep dry - talk about multitasking.

First job was to roll out the crates of veg and fruit so we could get to the shelves for a deep clean. Dave and Luke holed up in the back room whilst Jana, Tom, Jonathan, Sabir, Farzeen, Laura and Claire cleaned, swept and mopped the main room. It was a squash and a squeeze but many hands made the jobs on the list go quickly.

Excellent work team. We will be back in three months for Spring clean!

Valentine's Day is fast approaching and our task on a chilly and wet Tuesday was to produce a window display for the British Heart Foundation's shop.

The boys in our group were feeling pretty exposed and clueless so we left it to the girls to formulate an idea.

Step forward Levita, Laurel, Claire, Rachel, Jana and Anna to mastermind a design which attracted admirers almost immediately.

Jonathan, Tom, Luke, and Sabir helped bring down mannequins to be dressed in wedding finery, while Dave and Claire and others painstakingly cut out and stuck eye-catching hearts on the window. Flowers appeared by the bucketload, rugs were carried across the shop floor and it ended up looking pretty amazing.

A really fun evening ended with our social at The Albion, where Six Nation burgers are well recommended.

A great team showed their commitment to the January Challenge with another fun Tuesday evening at the YMCA's Hawker Centre.

It never feels like a chore cleaning the soft play area and Emma, Claire, Levita, Tom, Dave, Emily, Anna, Rachel, Luke, Farzeen, Jonathan, Sabir, Marcus, Laurel all got stuck in wiping down chairs, tables, surfaces and the sensory area with a lifetime's supply of disinfectant products.

MVP award to Luke, who even managed to clean the whole of the big slide without making (much of) a spectacle of himself.

The reward for it all is getting to be a big kid and climbing on the equipment ourselves afterwards. Lovely to be out and about, doing good and clocking up those points and kilometres.

We returned to Full Cycle this evening for our group run to power through the remaining tasks on our to-do list - we have our own whiteboard of jobs these days! Of course, the team shifted into gear and wasted no time getting stuck into the usual recycling jobs: sorting cardboard, inner tubes, and tyres for collection.

Then some of us tackled the mountain of wheels, separating tyres from rims and reorganising the storage space to ensure we were using every bit of space efficiently, leaving things spoke and span.

It was a high-energy session of lifting, sorting, and shifting. Some areas of the workshop look some what transformed, so it was another productive night in the bag for GoodGym Kingston. Wheely well done team!