What a lovely morning with the Friends of Lesnes Abbey and Woods (FOLAW)!

Their woodland conservation sessions take place on the first Sunday of every month and, as usual, we met at The Lodge. There was a big turnout today, with our GoodGym red t-shirts adding a vibrant splash of colour to the proceedings.

Marc from FOLAW had already pre-loaded wheelbarrows with equipment, so we trundled them a short distance into the woods to an area earmarked to become a coppice of hazel trees. Eventually, the hazel will be used for woodcrafts, reviving a traditional way of managing the woodland that would have been common at Lesnes Abbey in centuries gone by.

But before any new tree saplings can be planted, there’s a mammoth task ahead: clearing the long tract of land of ivy, brambles and fallen branches.

So we got to work!

With so many people, it was a hive of activity and a buzz of chatting as everyone worked alongside each other. Some used loppers and shears to cut through the green carpet of ivy and bramble tendrils, pulling and scooping everything up and ferrying it to one side to gently rot away. Some dug out bramble roots to try to curb their re-invasion plans, and others coordinated their weight-lifting efforts to lift move large fallen branches out of the way.

It was impressive to see just how much ground was cleared before we headed to the Chestnuts kiosk for coffees in the sunshine. ☕️

These sessions are a wonderful way to spend time outdoors, meet new people from FOLAW, catch up with familiar faces and be part of a initiative that’s helping restore an area of the ancient woodland to a more traditional form of management.

We’ll be back next month to keep the project growing! 🌱

It's not often that GoodGym is asked to go out and look for fairies, but there's a first for everything!

Discover Welling had invited us to test their augmented virtual reality trails, created using a new app called Love Exploring.

As an 'anytime task' GoodGymers could do it as and when they wanted, before the deadline.

Kam was the first to give it a go, finding a few virtual reality tree fairies 🧚‍♀️, then giving feedback to Discover Welling via an online form.

The rest of us decided to meet up and try the trails together. Between us we found not only VR tree fairies, but various VR bugs too, including a giant - and rather scary - ladybird 🐞.

We loved the concept but the Love Exploring app had quite a few bugs of its own that need to be ironed out so that Discover Welling's creativity can shine though.

This week we were back at the Welling Library to finish off the weeding and litterpicking at the front and along the side of the building. Some of us ran a short distance to the task.

We had some new equipment in the form of secateurs and shears to aid us, and we had it all looking great in no time!

After tidying away we had the obligatory group photograph then headed to the pub to celebrate Sarah's birthday!