It seems to rain a lot in Woolwich. Which is insulting, and probably not true, and based on nothing but the truth (!) that every time I’ve been in Woolwich on a Wednesday, it has been pelting down water from the black sky.

But I like the rain.

And so, it seems, do 9 other GoodGymmers, who collected outside Woolwich’s very lovely Crossrail station this Wednesday evening. Albeit under cover, and in the dry, and all armed with waterproofing and umbrellas and hats and very lovely smiles.

Our run leader, Sara, started the session with a question: if we were in a famous band, what role would we play? And I think, after considering our band of answers, we have amongst ourselves, superstars – hip hop hype dancing MCs, a frontman 80s rock god, and Elton John. And hyped by our responses, we two-stepped into a quick warm up, and we then burst through the smoke machine, and into the light and rain, and we headed to our task.

Up the long, winding hill…

Hours passed us by, and night became day, and day became night, and still, we hadn’t left Woolwich… We set up camp somewhere along the hill, and a dizzy haze descended upon our group, and some started to clean the roads and the lampposts, thinking we were already at our task. Amidst our delusion, at some undetermined point, we moved on, up the hill, leaving a section of road spotlessly clean. And then, suddenly, we were in the reception foyer of Shrewsbury House, dazed and confused.

There, we were met by the lovely team who run this fantastic community centre, and we were taken to a separate outbuilding, our arms loaded with an abundance of cleaning paraphernalia. Here, we got cracking – some, with long-reaching dusters, brushed away cobwebs from the ceilings, Sara cleaned with a handheld hoover, Andy wiped the walls and radiators clean, Pieter tackled the floors with the hoover, Kerry knocked the punching bag around and made Brin very scared, and this is just a snapshot, because everyone was busy making the place lovely and clean and ready for use by the local community.

And then, quite quickly, it was time to leave, and we took our cleaning gear back to the reception foyer. Here, Alex and I left the group to jump on a bus, and the rest headed back down the hill through the rain.

A really lovely evening everyone and looking forward to the next one!