Last night Julian, Marta and Khai ran the distance in the heat to Brooklands, the rest of us making our own way there. In no time we were ready to get stuck into the earthy business of shifting a mountain of soil to their newly built veggie beds. During two previous sessions we had depleted the store and filled two beds but we still had a lot to go.

Armed with shovels, spades, and a surprisingly musical fleet of wheelbarrows, the team got straight to it. Soil flew, sweat dripped, and laughter echoed as we powered through the task—step by step, barrow by barrow.

But tonight wasn’t just any GoodGym task. No no—we had a centurion in our midst. 🥳 HUGE congratulations to Khai on completing his 100th good deed! 💯 Incredibly humble and kind, always looking out for everyone else and a pleasure to spend time with, Khai is a highly valued member of our group!

Anyway, that's quite enough praise, Khai will have his head in his hands at this point. As the evening settled and the barrows rolled on, someone started humming a familiar tune... and soon, the soil-shifting spell was cast:

Shovel shovel toil and trouble, Wheelbarrow squeak and sweat a’ bubble. Load it high and push it fast, Make this veggie bed built to last. Soil on boots and sun on brow, No time to stop—we’re shifting now! Dig and dump, the wheel spins true, With Khai the centurian leading the crew. Spade and scoop and compost thrum, Helping hands till the job is DONE.

And done we were! By the end, we’d shifted a serious amount of soil and left the veggie beds ready for action—Brooklands students will be growing their greens in no time 🫛🥬

Thanks to everyone who came and mucked in (literally).

Next week we're back at Charlton Manor, this Sunday we've got the Hornfair Parksfest and remember our Sunday walk next week!

Until next time

Rachel 👋🏼

Wednesday saw 5 Good Gymers arrive at a surprisingly sunny Charlton House for our weekly group run. Tonight, we were off to Brooklands Primary School, a lovely little school with a big pile of soil to move. It was a long run so after some short formalities off we set, through Charlton and Kidbrooke and over the edge of the heath to the school. On arriving we made sure we all showed our best sides as Nadirah and her team were patiently waiting for us to continue creating their Good Gym documentary opus.

And so to the task, having moved a huge quantity of woodchip the last time, tonight it was time to move a large quantity of soil to the raised beds. Wheelbarrows and tools, both adult and child size, were assigned and most of the group started on the soil, with one person taking a bit of time to remove the weeds from the bed. The production line was hyper-efficient and, before you could say “I’m ready for my close-up”, the pile was soon shrinking. And despite the hard work some of us still had time to answer questions from the film team relating to our Good Gym experiences. After half an hour we were all done, we said our goodbyes to the file crew and ran off into the sunset.

Eight of us congregated at Charlton House this Wednesday for a new task at Brooklands Primary School!

After sharing tales of a tasty meal that we'd recently cooked (and distressing those who had yet to have their dinner) we set off for our 4km run as reliably informed by Cat's first Strava session, whoop whoop! She's properly getting ready for the big half, innit? We enjoyed a windy road through Morden College (sorry Tom, Darryl informed me it's Alms Houses, not a private school so that saves you a bit of research) and arrived a little out of breath to meet Khai at the school.

Here we had lots to do moving woodchip and soil across the playground into the new planters. And boy we had a good old gawk at the lovely facilities these kids get - there was a little jealousy in the group remembering some of our primary school "playgrounds" in comparison to this amazing space!

We got to work shoveling woodchip into kiddies wheelbarrows and giant wheelbarrows and anything we could find to move it all to the new planters and once that pile was depleted we got to work on the soil, managing about 15 barrowfells and filling one planter. That's a bigger piece of work and no doubt we will return to it another session. 40 minutes of back breaking work later, we called it, and it was time to run back over the heath with an inspired tour from Darryl on some beautiful local gardens that quite a few of us didn't know about. And then came the even more beautiful sight of the Green Goddess at the standard to which we staggered in for one or two pints and what happened in the Green Goddess stays in the Green Goddess. Suffice to say, therin, a shattered ego is all that remains of the tragic tale of Tom's brown suit.

Next week we have a river run and litter pick . Until next time!