Last night we met at Charlton house for a warm up and the heady prospect of finishing our task in the light! 🎉

The ice breaker involved sharing our phobias which ranged from belly buttons, to snakes, flying and fingers near eyeballs (eugh). Luckily none of the phobias were encountered on our run through Charlton Park down to the lovely Charlton Manor Primary School.

Here we were reunited with GoodGymers who met at the task and with Michael who was armed with brushes galore, paint, wet wipes and gardening tools. The task was to paint the kitchen and fences in the nursery area and get rid of all the pesky alkanet. We got to it, and many hands make for light painting so after fourty minutes we had a large section complete and lots of weeds in the bin. Excellent job team!

After a quick intervals session in a triangle round the school we stretched and headed home. A lovely evening with a lovely bunch, thank you all 😊

On Saturday we're helping at the Pet Cemetery in Hornfair Park and next Wednesday we're sorting at the Bridge Community centre.

Until next time 👋🏼

Rachel

First task of the evening involved everyone! We had to move three water tanks to the other side of the garden. World's strongest GoodGymer (Ivar) moved one on his own and then the other two needed everyone, not that they had a metal frame and water in or anything!

Next on the list was moving some wooden pallets and then moving part of the compost pile onto them. And then the final task was digging and an area where the 100 sunflowers are going to be planted. We can't wait to see how great that looks later in the year.

After a quick tidy up of tools and a group photo it was time to head back to Glass Mill.

Wow! A record 16 litterpickers turned out for Clean Up Charlton's monthly pick... with 9 GoodGymers included. Our 16 bags of rubbish were a bit lighter than usual as they seemed to be half full of cigarette ends - maybe the stress of a 2:1 loss for Charlton Athletic yesterday? And Ivar was on shocking form as you can see...

With such a big group we powered round Anchor & (no) Hope Lane, Bugsby's Way (plenty of MacDonald's litter there) and Woolwich Road before meeting at M&S for the usual celebratory coffee. Today, the team was really the perfect blend.

Here's a great joke from one of our sparky junior litterpickers: "What did the egg say to me when I told it a joke?" ..... wait for it.... "You crack me up!". He's got a future as a GoodGym report writer!

Thanks team for making SE7 a lot nicer. Love you a latte.

Sidcup Station. 10am.

Six gloved-up GoodGymers met Colin and Sue from Sidcup BID to help tidy up a patch of ground outside the ticket hall. With Sidcup a finalist in Britain in Bloom (Small Town category), it’s full steam ahead to get everything looking its best ahead of judging in July.

Today was all about digging out weeds, collecting up litter and turning over the soil, creating the perfect platform for seeds and plants that will bring some first class floral cheer to the area.

Breaking into the hard soil and squatting to pick up the liberated weeds proved to be a seriously good workout for legs and glutes! So too was collecting it all into bags destined for the green waste depot.

This was one of those satisfying tasks where the before-and-after difference was plain to see although you'll have to take my word for it as I forgot to take photos! However, I did get a pic of the tribute to a railway worker that we revealed. And it was nice that lots of passers-by said 'thank you' for our work.

After handing back the tools and getting a team photo, we said goodbye to Sue and Colin, and made our departure round the corner to En'route for coffee. A lovely way to round off the morning.

We're hoping to stay on board for destination Britain in Bloom, so watch this space! We'd love to have you along for the ride.