They say that only two things in life are certain: death and taxes but at this point the other seeming certainty in life is that it will rain for the GoodGym Greenwich group run. But we’re a hardy bunch and 6 of us assembled at Charlton House in the murk to distribute leaflets for two great local organisations: Charlton house, who, after some redecoration, are now open for events again, and Bexley and Greenwich Hospice who are holding a min marathon (always a GoodGym favourite for helping out at). After welcoming Felicity to her first group run, and some questions about our favourite Easter eggs it was time to go. We soon displayed deft skills in folding the two leaflets together, then split in two and set off for different parts of Charlton. Soon whole the area had been covered and, it’s hoped, the two organisations will get lots of support for their events.

I have an admission.

I suffer from a terrible and unbecoming affliction.

An affliction that can consume and dominate my delicate emotions.

And I bet you have it too. Go on - admit it - you too suffer from 'Stately Home Envy'. Or as I like to call it, SHE.

Which always makes going to the wonderfully lovely Charlton House rather painful. Perhaps they'll let me stay this time? Maybe everyone forget me and I can STAY? What would happen if I just slipped off to an evening in the library?

Alas, my fantasies remained and remain unsatisfied.

But anyway, reports reports reports.

Wednesday evening felt like summer, and this lovely group greeted it with smiles and laughter. Which was how we started - and we were even more excited having heard all about Marta and Jenny's Portuguese running exploits, including one of their awesome medals :)

Following a quick warm-up (where we all remembered how to play British Bulldog...), we trundled up through Greenwich Park and over the WONDERFULLY GORGEOUS AND AMAZING Charlton House, where we were met by a merry group of GoodGym friends.

Half the group donned their gloves and grabbed bags to spruce and tidy Charlton Park, and the other half took leaflets (advertising the House's family-friendly tours and events) to distribute throughout local streets and roads.

There was one particularly special moment on our group's (Julian, Matt, and I) tour of local streets - picture an old Victorian house - flowers blooming all across the frontage - imposing doorway - with its door wide open - and inside its pianist occupant treating the evening to some lovely music - amazing.

We got back to the full bags of freshly packed litter and the empty hands of busy leafletters.

And after sharing a few moments chatting and chilling, we headed back to Greenwich.

Thanks for a lovely evening, folks.

Ask any GoodGymer and you’ll find they’re not a stranger to power washers. Or hedge trimmers. Or clippers, trimmers, or cutters.

Or any piece of cleaning, pruning, or tidying wizardry that was invented to make the tough jobs that bit easier.

Although I am conscious I’m sounding like the TV-sales-schmoozers-and-crooners who sold DIY-gadgetry to the masses in the 90s.

Oh the life I could have had…

But we did get a taste of all of this last night at the wonderful Charlton House. Where our fellow good-deeder (and Parkrun Queen), Linda, mastered what was quite possibly the longest feather-duster in the land. It started extending and then it went, and went, and went, and went… right up to the farthest reaches of Charlton House’s wonderfully high ceilings, chandeliers, and mirrors.

Because that’s where this merry group went last night.

Starting in our usual haunt in the Naval College, we trundled (post a game of Stuck in the Mud) up through a very peaceful Greenwich Park, and over to Charlton. En route, Claire joined us on her cycle (riding more surely and steadily than I could ever hope), and when we arrived, we were met by several friendly faces – including GoodGym first-timer, Martin (welcome to the family, Martin!), and Marta’s brother, Luis (thanks for joining from the Netherlands, Luis!)

Megan, from the very friendly Charlton House team, had a multitude of tasks and chores to work on – several got shining and polishing the windows, others headed to local roads to deliver leaflets for an upcoming fundraising event, a few headed to the Park to clean and litter-pick, and Linda got dusting the hardest-to-reach crevices and nooks!

And then we were back to Greenwich, during which we chatted, nattered, and watched the most gorgeous of sunsets (thanks for the lovely photo, Olivia!)

Thanks for making last night lovely, folks!!

Granted, we didn't have a GoodGym Greenwich festive 'business meeting' last December. We merry bunch celebrated from afar with virtual quizzes and disparate mounds of mince pies and festive fare. Doing otherwise just wouldn't have been very good, right?

But... we did share a touch of synergy with the Government last night.... because our lovely travels to the Garrison Church in Woolwich was our very own 'plan b' following a last minute change to our good-deeding activity.

Although we were welcomed with mulled wine, so I guess we share a bit more in common with Downing St, even if a year too late.

Our evening started with celebrations. Celebrations for some serious GoodGym commitment. A huge congrats to Andy and Claire for their 100 good deeds! In true Greenwich style, the red cape of glory was on full show!!

And our mulled wine connoisseur was the wonderful Tim, one of the Garrison's trustees. We felt welcome from the moment we arrived.

And our task was simple. If a little heavy. The Garrison has an open courtyard set before a truly beautiful altar. It suffered fire damage during the Blitz and is being brought (since 2005) back to splendor and life by the Garrison's inspiring trustees. And this courtyard contained a few good mounds of bricks and paving stones - surplus to usage, our job was to move them our of the courtyard ready for collection.

And this group worked fast. Maybe it was the lure of mulled wine or maybe it was simply their good-deeding nature, but I struggled to get clear photos they were working that fast.

In 20 minutes we'd shifted the mounds into one easily-collectible (if very heavy) big mound outside of the church.

Which left us time to chat with Tim, have a little warm tipple, and explore the curiosity-sparking crypt, which the trustees are renovating.

Thank you to all of you who joined last night - and big congrats to Andy and Claire - and thank you, all, for turning a cold and dark evening happy.

Nice one.

22 runners ran over 7km to help out around Charlton House!

Amazingly we ended up having one of our biggest turnouts of the summer on one of the grimmest evenings! Great work everyone! It was double (well triple) cause for celebration last night because Natalie was about to complete her 50th good deed, and her second of the day... awesome stuff Natalie, keep up the amazing work!! You'll be at 100 in no time!

It was also Alex and Steve's birthday... hope you had a wonderful day lads and thanks for choosing to come to GoodGym as part of your celebrations! I loved hearing about everyone's terrible birthday presents, who knew hankies were so popular?!

Our run last night was to the lovely Charlton House which is a bit further away than our regular tasks. It is nice to do a longer run every now and then but it means we were a little bit pushed for time, so we put our stuff in the room and set off immediately!

We arrived about 25 minutes later and were greeted by Carolyn and Megan who had a list of tasks for us. We had cable ties to snip from railings, we had gravel to sweep, litter to pick and books to tidy! Without much hesitation, everyone got cracking! There were already 5 do-gooders on hand who had arrived a little earlier and completed a few tasks before we even got there.. nice one!!

One of the jobs was tidying the books in the Old Library... what an amazing room that is!! Weddings are often hosted in there so we couldn't have any of the books stacked on top of the bookcases! Nuh-uh. Everything was nice and neat and lined up properly by the time we were finished with it!

After 20 minutes on site we were pretty much done. Loads of litter had been collected, the gravel had been swept from the disabled bay and relocated to under the archway and many handfuls of cable ties had met their match!

We took a quick pic before heading back a slightly different route for a change to see some different areas of Greenwich! We arrived back to the uni a little late but still with enough time to have some cakes to celebrate the special occasions and long run of course!

JC even treated everyone to some frozen meat and fish, he was not going to let anyone leave without some... I hope everyone enjoys their pork joints and home made fish & chips later tonight!

Next week is our social where we will get together after the group run. It would be great to have you there, sign up here if you haven't already and I will be doing a poll on the Facebook group for where to go so if you aren't a member of that yet make sure you join!

The community mission for the Twilight Walk marshalling that I was talking about is listed here. It's actually not until end of September (I thought it was sooner, sorry) but currently only Jenny is signed up and I'm sure she'd appreciate a few mates!

One more date for your diary.. on Saturday 31st August we are heading to Beckenham Place Parkrun for our monthly visit with the option to have a dip in the new ponds afterwards if it's a nice day. Should be fun!

And that's it from me for this week!!

Great work on the task and the run last night everyone!! There were a few vicious hills in there but I didn't hear a peep of complaining from anyone!! So really well done. See you next week for our litter pick run and social!

15 fab runners ran 7km to tidy up at Charlton House!

Our run was a wee bit longer than usual last night, well I say a wee bit, it was over double the length of what we're normally used to doing here in Greenwich plus it was the first time in a long time that we had to run up THAT hill!

We welcomed back Lizi after a a 9 month hiatus who in that time has got married and honeymooned! Good to have you back Lizi!

So we set off as soon as we could knowing it would take a little longer than normal. After about 20 minutes and a big hill later, we arrived at the wonderful Charlton House. We were greeted by Simon who had buckets, sponges, brooms, scissors and an industrial strength cleaner for us.

Our main tasks were to clean graffiti, snip off a bunch of rogue cable ties from the railings and litter pick the grounds. However, in reality, our main task was actually FINDING the grafitti first. After a lap of the whole house, none was spotted but after about 15 minutes searching, lots was finally found on the brick wall of the park. The high strength cleaner worked an absolute treat, it was like rubbing out pencil! Disappeared in an instant!

Meanwhile the rest of the crew were off in search for litter. It was a bit more challenging than expected in the dark but by the end there was a nice little haul collected. Nice!!

The success story of the night though was the team on cable tie duty who managed to collect a whole bucket's worth of cable ties from railings, benches and fences etc. GREAT WORK!!

After about half an hour, we reconvened, put everything away, took a pic and off we went! We said bye to Kat our back marker who, by the way, can speak 6 different languages... amazing! Or should I say incroyable!

No time for a fitness session last night, sorry guys, but we will be back with a bang next week! Lots of people tapering for big races though so I promise to keep it light :)

We had a little stretch and called it a night!!

Just a quick few links for the things that I mentioned yesterday

Here is the link to the Mini Marathon community mission on 12th May. Stewards, marshals and set up volunteers required!

Also the big Earth Hour community mission is taking place on Saturday. Have a look here, sounds super fun!

Great work last night everyone! Lots of great running from you all and thanks for all your hard work and patience when we got there!! See you on Saturday for Beckton Parkrun or next Wednesday!