What a glorious sunny morning for our final session of the year at the Community Hospice, working alongside head gardener, Jason 🌞🌿.

Today we embarked on new project, to take out a series of Buddleja davidii plants - aka 'The Butterfly Bush' - in a patch of ground that will eventually become a new flower bed. Big plants, big plans!

But what about the butterflies you might say? Jason explained that Buddleja is an invasive species and having been left untended these shrubs need to go. There are plenty more insect-friendly plants in the garden to support biodiversity.

So, for starters we cut back the branches. Sophie took charge of the telescopic loppers, reaching the lofty heights, while the rest of us tackled the lower growth.

Then it was out with the saws to cut through the thicker main stems. Such a buzz when each big portion came out and the view through to the area behind started to emerge.

Finally, lots of cutting with secateurs into smaller pieces from our felled timber, ready for the compost heap. This bit was surprisingly relaxing, just snipping and chatting.

Meanwhile, across the garden Rachel and our youngest helper carefully weeded a border. What a difference they made too.

Afterwards a few of us headed to the Hospice cafeteria for lunch, and some cute penguin biscuits.

That's one Buddleja down... just five more to go! Fancy lending a hand next time? We’d love to see you there 🌱💪

Last night we had a busy and brilliant evening celebrating Luke 's 50th good deed, welcoming Manish to his first, and doing a poignant good deed - helping Discover Welling take down the Remembrance poppies along the high street.

When we did this task last year it was a struggle cutting through the cable ties in the finger-numbing cold.

This time, thanks to the eco-friendly reusable ties we’d used to put them up, and a much milder evening, the job was far easier!

Afterwards we found a big table at the pub for a lovely social with eats, drinks, lots of chat and laughter.

As well as forgetting to take any photos during the task, it turns out that we missed a few poppies too. But Julie was in the area this morning and collected them in her highly appropriate Royal British Legion bag.

The poppies and cable ties will be safely stored away so that Welling can pay its respects again next November ❤️

Tonight’s task was all about spreading the word about the Welling Sparkle ✨ — the town’s festive Christmas market organised by Discover Welling — by putting up promotional stickers along the High Street to help get everyone excited about the event!

After welcoming Hannah and Paul to their very first GoodGym session, we did a quick warm-up then set off on a 1.3k chatty run to meet the rest of the gang at our first lamp post rendezvous.

With the supermoon glowing above 🌕 and the distant popping of fireworks 🎆 (it is the 5th of November, after all!), we split into two groups to cover both sides of the road. It wasn’t meant to be a race, but a little friendly competition emerged over which team could finish their side first!

Along the way, it was lovely to chat with a few curious passersby who asked about the Welling Sparkle.

Seventy-eight lamp posts later, it was mission accomplished! After a brisk walk back to Crook Log with lots of chatting, we wrapped up another fun and productive evening.

We’ll be back in Welling next week for more lamp post duty — taking down the Remembrance poppies. Hope to see you there!