It was a full-on session at Full Cycle this week, bolstered by some fantastic neighbouring support - a few members of the GoodGym Merton team cycled across the borough to lend a hand with the packed to-do list.

In the workshop, it was all hands on deck as we dove into the usual recycling of inner tubes and tyres. This included sorting through wheel rims and tackling the somewhat difficult job of removing stubborn rubber from the metal.

Outside, the mission felt like a high-stakes game of bike Tetris. We had to move a sea of cycles and untangle them from encroaching brambles just to create a workspace. Once we had the room, the team made short work of cutting back the overgrowth, sweeping up leaves, and clearing rubbish before neatly returning every bike to storage.

Heavy lifting, tricky logistics, and plenty of camaraderie: just another un-tyre-ing group session!

Best-laid plans often go awry... and tonight was one of these times. Our resilient leader Rachel had organised two tasks for the evening (as our little group is not so little anymore!) but alas one fell through at the last minute so all 13 of us ended up together at Claremont Gardens in Surbiton. Fortunately the task here was big enough to take us all and then some.

We all congregated by the dried up pond in Claremont Gardens and task owner Georgina explained that the pond needed to be stripped back of rubbish, sticks, logs and dead/unnecessary reeds so that it could be filled up again. The liner had unfortunately failed which meant, even after all the rain fall of 2026 so far, the pond was mostly dry.

Many hands really were needed for this task as there was a whole load to do. Sticks and logs were collected from the pond bed and turned into a bug hotel up on the bank; reeds were pulled up from the driest parts; Dead vegetation was removed; huge clumps of reed roots were extracted and swathes of grass were dug up, roots and all. We found a few of our amphibious friends along the way and made sure that they hopped off to a safe spot.

The hour flew by and we made great progress. The next step is to fill the pond and hope that our work means that the water holds this time! There's plenty more work to do in and around the pond so hopefully we'll be back to check it out again sometime soon.