It was all happening in Thorlands on Saturday!

Probably our biggest turnout since we started to collaborate with Simon and the Thorland gang in the summer. Was it because everyone knows we're all working towards a meaningful project or was it because everyone wanted to get shrooming? Probably both.

Firstly, thanks and shout out to Jessie, Katie and Nathan for convincing Chris at Brockwell Parkrun to come along. We had a couple of newbies too - Laura and Lucie, welcome again to GoodGym and I hope you'd enjoyed the session. Still, technically, a newbie too - Ema came along for her 3rd ever Good Deed and 2nd Thorlands community mission in a row! Yet, I know and understand why we all want to come back and help Simon. We can see the vision and the work that needs to be done to get to the point where there will be a stage for small and intimate performances, an outdoor yoga tent, an arts & craft market stall(s), an actively growing kitchen garden and much more for all to enjoy!

Thorlands Garden Club need our help continuing with the buddleia bashing and crushing the corinthian (I think that's what it was) tree in the forest garden. In 8, we split into two teams, for the sake of this report, let's say "A" team and "B" team....

In the "A" team, we had the "no nonsense" Chris slashing at the buddleia with the loppers and then its stump with the saw, Laura and Ema who were systematic at trimming back and categorizing what Chris had cut - leafy greens in one pile, small woody bits in another, larger woody bits in a third pile and the bind weed in the plastic bag. It's all very scientific.

In the "B" team, we had the determined Nathan with the mattock digging into the soil to take out the roots with Jessie whilst Katie and Lucie sorted out the branches into their categorized sizes and occasionally, taking a good 10-15 minutes to saw any branches that were too big 🙃😜

I went in between each group to help out (at times), chat and take photos....what am I slacking? Nope, that's my job 😜

The hour and a half sped by as we could tell the massive difference in the "before" and "after" shots (although, I forgot to take a "before") in both the area "A" team and "B" team were working on. It was that impressive that Simon kindly invited all of us to stay for the mushroom workshop as Elliot from Urban Farm-It had much room for us 😂

The knowledgeable Elliot woo'd and wowed us with his impressive knowledge of all things mushroom (from the origins of mushrooms to how mushrooms will save/take over the world...they will literally get us out of truffle) 😂 The session really grew on me.... There will be another Shrooming session with Elliot in the Spring, so look out for that.

Thank you all for coming out and I will be adding Simon's photos to this report once I receive them.