Tonight it was weeding, watering and composting at the Charlton Station Community Garden. But tonight was an extra special session because we were joined for the first time by Yingying! It was lovely to meet you and we hope to see you again soon.

After sharing our favourite birds, we set off for a run through Charlton, stopping to say hi to Bambi and her other relatives at the animal park, past the football stadium (come on you reds) and through to the community garden to be met by the volunteers already hard at work.

The task was spreading out compost over the flower beds and veggie beds, watering and a spot of weeding. Many hands make light work and soon it was time for a photo, stretching and off on our journeys home. And some of us picked a few beans and some rocket to enjoy with our dinner!

Nice one team.

Next Wednesday we're at Hervey Road - hope to see you there!

It was a chilly and frosty December morning in Charlton park. Several GoodGym-ers had been running or volunteering at the parkrun beforehand, and two stayed behind to help the team at Charlton Community Gardens. They are a great organisation who maintain a community garden at Charlton station and also two community orchards inside Charlton park.

They had received donations of around 400 bulbs to improve the community orchards, and needed some help with planting them all. After a quick coffee at the Old Cottage café to warm up, we met Ruth at 10.30 and received our instructions. We got started by planting 50 tulip bulbs in the orchard by the café, then moved on to planting 50 crocus bulbs in the orchard by the play park.

The frozen ground meant it was hard going, but after 45 minutes we had everything planted up. Unfortunately were also starting to lose the feeling in our fingers and toes... so we said our goodbyes and headed off our separate ways. We will look forward to seeing all of the colourful blooms appearing in the spring time next year!

After making a good start to our Saturday by joining at our new favourite local parkrun these brave GoodGym'ers did not yet feel tired enough and helped out the Charlton Community Gardens project by planting and maintaining some apple trees. We're looking forward to enjoying the fruits of our labour!

The friends of the garden have down an amazing job and it's such a beautiful thing to have a garden full of fruit and veg and herbs for you to take if needed. My heart was filled knowing that it's there and meeting the wonderful ladies and gentlemen who have put their hearts into this spot.

Delays aren't good. They make you wait and sometimes you don't want to wait. And I have made this merry group of good-deeding peeps wait far too long for a report on their Herculean painting efforts.

Please forgive me, friends, life has gotten in the way. And please don't ask for my good deeds to be docked.

For I have wonderful things to report about Francis, Jenny, Julian, Laura, Michelle, and Steve (the brother), who turned a wall from tired grey to sparkling white.

Two weeks back, we scrubbed and rubbed away the wall's dirt and grime, and this task was about turning our clean canvas into something bright and hardy.

It's incredible to see what a group of GoodGymers can achieve in less than an hour. In 45 minutes, we'd gloved up, put out our ladders, painted, and tidied. And all under the watchful admiration of Charlton's steady stream of impressed commuters.

We're back at the end of the month to give this wall a second coat to protect it for the winter and years to come.

Thanks for coming, team, and for sharing your smiles and energy.

Nice one.

Concrete is a wonderful thing. Just ask a brutalist (of the architecture variety), or a builder, or one of those people of who drive them big spinny lorry thingys.

Concrete and London know each other very well. A little like Bill and Ben, just a little more grey.

Which can sometimes be the problem.

Take Charlton Station. Situated in lovely South East London, its your perfect spot to quickly jump into or out of London. It is, in other words, wonderfully useful. But it can be a little grey. With all that concrete, it can't help but be a little grey.

But as soon as you step off of the platforms, you get to a little garden maintained with loving care. Think beautiful planters, wall climbers, and even one of them wholesome rainwater collectors. It's a bit of bliss cared for by some very lovely members of the Charlton community.

And we were there to make things a little... well a little less grey. The concrete walls on the far side are due a lick of new paint, and it's a lick that we'll be helping with next week. They've borne the brunt of a few decades of London weather and pollution and are looking forward to being a bit brighter again.

Our task for the evening was to scrub. To scrub away the accumulated dirt and the grime so that next week's paint clings to the walls smoothly and nicely.

Intrepid GoodGym Greenwich good-deeders Francis, Jenny, Julian, Sarah, and Steve got to the job with buckets of sugar soap and much elbow grease. Some went up ladders, whilst others covered the bottom half. And in 60 minutes, we were seeing dirt and moss washed into the gutters. We could even, with a squint and a wink, see (or at least imagine...) what the wall's original colour really was.

After just over an hour, we packed up and bid our farewell to the lovely group who maintain this communal garden week in week out.

We'll be back next Wednesday to start turning our blank canvas into something a little brighter again.

Nice one.