Having not personally been to the St Mary’s Forest School for a few months, I was impressed by how much it has changed and turned from a blank canvas to an exciting space with a number of reshaped and themed areas, helped in no small part by a number of recent GoodGym visits.

Upon arriving this week our team split into two groups, with group 1 continuing last week’s efforts formalising the pathways around the emerging gardens many features & areas, whilst group 2 prepared other areas for cultivation with wildflowers. These pathway preparations again entailed the shifting of a top layer of wood chips to reach and also flattening of the earth below, so that weed-controlling membrane could be laid.

Meanwhile, by torchlight, group 2 were raking through and clearing the flower beds-to-be before deftly scattering wildflower seeds and treading them into their new home. As if to support the seeds’ settlement in-situ, we were even treated to a light passing shower mid-task!

Meanwhile, drawing on last week’s experience, group 1’s pathway work was proving swift and efficient as multiple section of membrane were laid and the top-chips returned before being spread and levelled. A final all-hands effort saw additional wood chip harvested from neighbouring areas to ensure the new paths received a good and even covering.

We will return to St Mary’s again next week to continue on this exciting project – who knows what further changes we will see then..!

It was that time again...time for a warm up quiz! The rules are simple (sprint to either the true or false light) and winners do star jumps/losers do squats. With questions including it takes a sloth 2 weeks to digest a meal (true) and theres 202 bones in the human body (false), safe to say we had all warmed up and learnt something new.

It was a short run to St Mary's Forest School where Anne-Marie was waiting for us. It's the first time we had seen the space since we were sifting the soil for glass and digging up other rubbish back in July and the space is AMAZING now. A huge transformation that couldn't have been done without our hard work.

Last nights task was moving the bark (that the parents had carefully laid but minus the weed proof membrane), laying the membrane, pegging it down and then replacing the bark. With 2 areas to cover with split into 2 groups, making sure not to lose the tiny hammer and the scissors (we have marks against our names for losing tools)!

45min later we had the path completed and with everyone getting involved in replacing all the bark in the seating area and a rush to get it done - we achieved our goal!

The post-group run social is definitely taking place on 31st October, for those that have watched me move the listing around over a few Mondays.

After a week off group running due to the extreme heat, we were ready and raring to go! It was a shorter run this week over to St Mary's Primary School to continue clearing that space which will eventually become a Forest School. We are lucky to have been involved in this task right from the start and it has been amazing to see the progress since our first visit.

Our main task tonight was a fairly simple one: to remove all the rubbish and glass from the site. The school don't want the rubbish surfacing at a later date when there are children using the area. Armed with thick leather gloves, we began clearing years and years of rubbish including a lot of tennis balls and the more creepy, a doll with matted hair and the more strange, a metal pipe covered in plastic bamboo.

The other tasks that needed to be completed this evening included moving the larger branches and pieces of wood into a pile as these will be used for building structures in the Forest School. And also moving the fence panels to the rubbish pile.

With 5min to go our last task for the evening was to move a pile of concrete that had been dug up to the rubbish pile - the group got stuck in and it was done in no time. All that was left was for me to remove the bramble thorns from my leg and it was group photo time and back to Glass Mill.

We haven't been back to the site of the Forest School for a couple of months as the designers and landscapers have been beavering away and making plans for the space. It was fantastic to be back there in daylight and to see how big the space actually is.

We had 2 tasks for the evening, 2 very big tasks:

• take down the fence that was splitting the space in half
• clear as much brambles and weeds as possible to allow the landscapers to see exactly what they're working with

We split into groups and began clearing the space. As it was a shorter run, we had plenty of time to get stuck into the task and make a real difference.

After a missing pruning saw was found, it was time to head back to Glass Mill slightly later than planned but time flies when you're having fun!

Lewisham's finest gathered outside Glass Mill trying to shelter from the fine misty rain, ready to tackle the space at St Mary's Primary School that will eventually become a forest school.

We started with a quick warm up and headed out on the short run to this evenings task. We first visited this task towards the end of last year and it was our first time returning since the brambles have been cut back allowing us to access more of the site.

Our task this evening was to remove the large pieces of rubbish ready for Lewisham Council to collect. In true GoodGym style we got stuck in straight away and uncovering an assortment of rubbish from a bbq to a bike wheel to an inflatable fish, not to mention multiple hosepipes. The rubbish just kept coming and we unveiled what we think is a collapsed shed but that's a job for daylight.

The rain had been coming down pretty hard and with all the main pieces of rubbish cleared we called it a day, gathered out lights and made our way out, making sure no one had been left behind. It was a short run back to Glass Mill and the majority of the group chose to continue running back to the warmth of their homes and the call of a warm dinner - double cool down for you all next week then! Thanks for backmarking this week, Marta!

Next time we visit it will be in daylight and we'll be tackling the brambles in the area that will become the orchard. Keep an eye out for a weekend community mission!

We had a brand new task this evening which was a short run from our start point but first we needed to warm up which involved a game of rock, paper scissors. The winner got to sprint to the edge of the warm up area whilst the loser had to do 5 squats – it was undecided who was actually the winner or loser in this game. Although the clear winner was Iitmari who won every round!

We made our way over to St Mary’s Primary School together as a group and met Anne-Marie who gave a very detailed health and safety introduction to keep us all safe and meant a lot of shouts of high feet around the area. There were lots to get involved in, including:

• Clearing the brambles to plant spring bulbs
• Cutting back brambles to access the fence
• Sawing the fence into parts so it could be removed
• Removing the fence
• Clearing the brambles in the area that will become a meadow
• Cutting back a hedge area
• Pairing up of abandoned shoes
• Being a human flood light

We managed to clear a huge amount of brambles, reunited a pair a shoes, freed a basketball, found a chicken dog toy and found three fur trims from multiple coats.

It was time to pack up tools and make sure we hadn’t left any in the brambles – we have a reputation for losing tools!!

We made our way to Ladywell Fields to work on our hill sprints. First off we did a hill sprint, then a hill sprint with no arms so we looked like penguins, then we partnered up and focused on driving our arms and then did another hill sprint to put this into practice and hopefully everyone felt a bit stronger on the hills by the end!