What a smashing morning with the Friends of Danson Park, laying wood chippings along the Woodland Walk 🌳.

With eight of us (plus a husband and two brilliant young helpers) working alongside the regular volunteers we got so much done. Shoveling chippings into wheelbarrows, ferrying them to the path, raking them out, going back for more. It was genuinely impressive seeing our dynamic GoodGym team in action.

Beth coined things beautifully in saying, 'This is the best kind of GoodGym task, when you get a great workout, and can see a real difference at the end.'

Great work everyone!

With the path finished we headed to Danson Stables (cafe, not horses) for hot drinks kindly provided by the manager, and biscuits provided by the Friends ☕️🍪.

We'll be back next month, getting busy again to keep Danson Park looking wonderful.

• And the title for this report? When Ashton told us someone called him Alvin, and we were ferrying the chippings around... nice punning Beth!

What a glorious spring morning for a spot of gardening.

It was our monthly visit to help the regular volunteers of the Friends of the Old English Gardens in Danson Park. The sun was shining and the gardens were looking gorgeous.

Nicky from the Friends assigned our tasks: Johnny and Sarah set about edging the lawn and weeding the border on circular flower bed 15, while Michelle, Suzie and Francis got stuck into weeding the flower beds along the pergola path.

In the background lots of families were also enjoying the Gardens, on an Easter Egg Hunt. We might even have found a few eggs ourselves...

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.