Tonight's task was an unusual one - attaching lovely giant poppies to lampposts in Penge, for the upcoming Remembrance Day. The poppies will actually be up from today til mid November when we have a mirror task to take them down - so a full month to have those lovely colourful flowers up as a reminder of those who gave so much.

We split into two mini-teams and each took one side of the high street, attaching poppies as we walked, from the Bridge House up to Kent House Road. It seemed like there were a lot more lampposts on one side of the road, so James and I felt a bot like we were cheating when we moved ahead of our opposite team - and crossed back at the end to add a couple and meet them on the way back. All in all once we got the hang of the cable ties, a sweet task. And someone even approached us to ask if we had a collection tin with us. Aren't people nice!

Mia and I joined the regular volunteers and some new faces at Dacres Wood Nature Reserve on Saturday to help John with one of our messiest tasks of the year - pulling the overgrown reeds from the pond! Suited up in waders and industrial looking gloves, we got stuck in (quite literally - the soil was very clay-like!) tugging the reeds from the roots, getting covered in algae in the process. Mia even found a newt along the way, which she rehomed on the other side of the reserve. Before and after photos in the pictures - not bad for an hour’s work!

Tonight we had a short run to the Blenheim-Arpley estate in Penge to meet Jami and the other volunteers from the Residents Association. We were tasked with helping the team shift a huge woodchip pile donated by Bromley council which they needed depositing around the estate. We made great progress (even with a brief interlude while Jami calmed down some anxious residents who spotted our red t-shirts and headlamps and thought we were the Russians coming to invade!) and you can see how much we shifted by the markings on the floor in the "after" photo. Great work tonight team!

We had our second outing to help Jeannette and Alan dismantle the smaller chicken coop at Dorset Road Allotments tonight. Assisted by some power tools (handled by Alan) we made great progress and managed to take off one of the sides and most of the roof, not to mention many wheelbarrows of weeds and brambles that had grown since the last time we visited. Special shout out to Laura who was visiting from Mali and chose to spend her limited time off helping us out!

Once we'd finished the task, we were treated to a selection of allotment-grown fruit and veg as a thank you for our hard work, which was a lovely surprise!