After a day of fairly atrocious weather, the skies finally took pity on us and cleared just in time for our Tuesday evening mission to the Lighthouse & Gardens, hidden away behind the fences near Stratford International. If you’ve walked past without realising what’s there — trust us, it’s a brilliant little community space.

It was great to welcome Fuad and Eugene back after a few busy weeks at work, and the team set off on a scenic jog through the Olympic Park towards the gardens. A tube strike delay meant our host Sharon was running a little behind schedule, but GoodGymmers are nothing if not adaptable, so we filled the gap with an impromptu football skills session that definitely featured more enthusiasm than technical ability (speaking for myself at least).

Once Sharon had arrived and given us some directions, we got on with dismantling some rotten wooden planters that had seen better days. This turned out to be a satisfyingly varied task: digging out the soil, then deciding which demolition technique to deploy. Some sections responded nicely to careful unscrewing, while others required the much more cathartic “smash it apart and hope for the best” approach.

By the end of the evening we’d cleared quite a few planters, making a real difference for the small number of regular volunteers here, who wouldn’t have been able to tackle such a structural job themselves. It’s always rewarding knowing that our evening’s effort can make life easier for the volunteers who dedicate so much time to maintaining this valuable community space.

A lovely evening, a hidden oasis, and just enough dry weather to get the job done — we’ll hopefully be back in a couple of months to help again!

Check out all our upcoming sessions — including a bonus Saturday morning mission at Little Ilford Community Garden this weekend!

Only a few weeks in, and Miss N has GoodGym shopping mastered - she has photos of all the items that she wants readily prepared (which in my world is just perfect). An easy list to follow though this week - however the only flavour of liquid detergent that Aldi had was Coconut Crush, whereas Miss N was insistent on Tropical Lily (when I called her to double check). To think someone somewhere has the job of coming up with these product names...

A shorter than usual list for Mr R this ("looks like it might rain later") particular Monday afternoon, so was an easy and pleasant walk to and from Tesco to get what he needed. We ended up having a long conversation about the challenges of disposing of old/unwanted furniture as Mr R has a background in antiques...yet again another fascinating school day.