The downpour & hail that surprised the Victoria Park area with its ferocity might have put off a few people. However the skies cleared up in time so I did have the pleasure of welcoming Heather to our little hideaway/home for her first ever Goodgym experience!

After talking all things Goodgym, it was time to make a move, so armed with a few bags and faithfull litterpickers we set off towards one of the regular hotspots in the area, coincidentally a location Heather knew already!

Conversation flowed, as well as the rubbish flowing into our bags. Two bags crammed full, barely able to close them, were left at a recognisable spot for the Council to collect, with two loads of dumped building rubbish to be reported for their attention as well.

Time had moved on so quick that we ended up limiting the running, but with a promise to make up for it next time - which happens to be next week!

We started by walking to Lidl and then the local garden centre to get some flowers to replace those that were vandalised yesterday! It was sooo windy and chilly!

we then planted flowers and finished filling in the planter reservoirs with water, good session!

we spent a good hour watering the planters, filling up water reserves this morning - good arm work out!

Sadly, on arrival, we discovered that some noob has pulled out a lot of plants and flowers last night and threw them on the road where they were flattened:(. What would drive a person do that?!

Anyways, we'll be replanting again and again, in the meantime this anti-social behaviour was reported and hopefully individual can be identified through the CCTV and fined!

There are a lot of great things about a community project, unfortunately you also deal with the negative side of community. It won't stop local residents creating good initiatives!

With the supermarket delivery already offloaded and Ed and Linda coming in early to set up the cages we were ahead of the game at Frenford Food Bank this week. Sadly the printer was not so on the ball and we had a little wait for the orders to be produced.

Time to do a little extra shelf filling and for Linda to try on a jacket which AJ was passing on from one of her stewarding volunteer sessions. It fit perfectly which is not surprising as you can see from the photo we are practically twins. 😂 While taking that photo Liz accidentally took a photo of her foot which came in handy as a 'before' photo...see below for explanation.

Pretty soon we were picking and packing at a rate of knots. It was really hot despite having all the doors open and there were some pretty pink faces around. We were about to stop for a tea break when Liz dropped a pack of tuna tins on her foot which Linda found hilarious ...until she saw the blood 😳(sorry Liz) like the trooper she is Liz was back up and packing again as soon as she was cleaned up and plastered. Things were going so well and we thought we were finished early but were asked to hang on as more orders had come in so we had a little pause for flapjacks and other treats then finished off the last few while Ed started restocking the shelves and it wasn't too long before we were done.

Our Marie and Helena told us that they wont be coming to sessions for a while due to other commitments, they have both been such valuable members of the team we will miss them but wish them well on their separate ventures.

All in all another successful mission under our belts.

With the planned babybank task dropping out, a litterpick seemed the quick solution.

The post-task social remained, so where Elegia joined Peter & James (first time in charge!) at our 'home' of Wanstead House to go for a run & pick, the rest of the crew ( Linda, Sharon & Aj) met a bit later on at Wanstead Station to walk across to the restaurant in Leytonstone, picking litter on the way there.

For a change we popped down to Wanstead Park, now the light allows more free roaming around. Elegia mentioned how the park looked surprisingly clean!

A quick little sesh to clear the litter and water the plants.

On arrival, I cleared the cigarette butts - not too bad in most planters, but a couple clearly been used as an ashtray, someone even left a little glass to put cigarette butts in! seriously!

Only planters under the bridge needed a good soak, I could see that everything was settling in well and heather showed a sign of bee growth!