This morning we joined the Friends of Lesnes Abbey and Woods (FOLAW) for their monthly conservation session in the ancient woodland that forms a gorgeous green backdrop to the abbey ruins.

Sarah, Johnny and Manish (along with his little one!) came from volunteering (and running 🏃) at the adjacent junior parkrun. Sunday double good-deeding at its best!

We also welcomed Jinling to her very first GoodGym task 🥳.

Marc from FOLAW told us about a suspiciously straight line of trees discovered by the park ranger, the alignment suggesting it might have been an ancient hedge. To help uncover its story, our task was to clear rampant ivy from one side and cut back beastly brambles on the other. You could say we were helping the ranger see the wood for the trees 😉.

Our fearless team of GoodGymers took on the brambles. With loppers and shears, we cut back the branches, then dug in (literally!) with forks to wrestle out the stubborn roots.

Despite the rain we stayed busy and by the time we wrapped up we'd revealed a good section of the tree line. What a sense of achievement!

With perfect timing, the rain stopped as we packed away the tools, so we headed to Chestnuts café to carry on chatting over a drink and a KitKat before heading home.

Huge well done to Jinling on completing your first good deed - a brilliant GG debut 🌟. And it was lovely to have our smallest helper along, getting his very first taste of GoodGym and nature conservation too 💚💪.

We'll be back again for this session next month - sign up here. But before then there are plenty more opportunities to get involved in your local community with GoodGym Bexley.

Four of us helping at Lesnes Abbey Wood junior parkrun this morning.

Kam and Johnny were high-fiving runners, I gave out finishing tokens and Manish helped with breakdown after running with his son.

Kam headed home, while the three of us hooked up with the Friends of Lesnes Abbey and Woods for their monthly conservation session 🌳🌳🌳.