It's that time of year when the headtorches are back out, ready to plot out the often varied surfaces of Richmond as we run around! But before we switched them on we celebrated Sam hitting 10 GoodGym deeds 🥳

A lovely chatty run along the riverside then back into town to avoid the slippery post-tidal silt brought us to the Buccleuch Arcade in the dark. No time to get cold though as we carried out a bodyweight workout of squats, shadow boxing and lunges before getting equally stuck in to cleaning up the arcade removing debris from the shutter gulleys, sweeping, de-cobwebbing and breaking down the compost heap into smaller pieces. Lovely work all round 🕸️🧹

It was a hand-some Saturday morning on Richmond Green as our dedicated squad of GoodGymers rolled up our sleeves for a rather delicate mission! While brooms are great for hard surfaces, the tiny, stubborn litter tucked into the grass and gravel around the benches requires a much more personal touch.

There was no sweeping this under the rug—we had to get right down into the details, hand-picking every last cigarette butt and microscopic piece of rubbish that usually gets missed.

Armed with gloves, sharp eyes, and ultimate patience, we combed the ground around the benches finding rogue cigarette butts everywhere, but we made sure to nip every single one in the butt! From tiny bits of plastic wrap to microscopic debris, our fingers did all the heavy lifting. We left no stone—or bench slat—unturned in our quest for a spotless green. After a thorough session of bending, stretching, and precision picking, the perimeter around every bench was left looking immaculate and pristine.

It was a seat-sational team effort, proving once again that many hands make light work (and clean greens!). Massive thanks to everyone who lent a hand—we really cleaned up our act down to the very last cigarette butt!

A little bit eerie, a mysterious warmth in the air, head torch lights bounding along pathways, ten heads poking about, breaking cobwebs and disappearing around corners and popping back out on the main road again... Such was our return trip to litter pick at Petersham Common. So much more had been chucked from cars in the interim that by the end, we had bulging bags that should never, ever have ended up in nature.

Our weekend visit to the 3Ps plot featured Adam and Jenna on a unbeeleafable sunny October day by the river.

We kept beesy by dead heading, removing some of the fallen leafs from the flower bed and also weeding the lawn, leafing passers by suitably buzzing about how bee-uatfully it looked.

Overall a bee-autful job done!