We had the first of our bulb planting tasks tonight, with nine volunteers making their way to Alexandra Recreation Ground to plant some tulips while the squirrels were asleep. The task almost didn't happen as our task owner Millie wasn't well (get well soon!) but Mark saved the evening by cycling to pick up the keys to the tool shed on his night off. What a legend!

Once we'd got the shed open, we had fun trying to work out which bulbs were tulips. Luckily our resident horticulturalist Rosie was on hand to guide us and give us tips on optimal bulb planting.

Our next challenge was breaking into the soil: as we've had very little rain over the last few weeks, the ground was rock hard, which definitely put the Gym in GoodGym. After a bit of trial and error, though, we perfected our hole digging technique (the spade as a pogo stick approach worked best) and in less than half an hour we had planted all our bulbs. Big shout out to Michelle who was taking part in her first task - I appreciate that digging holes in the dark is a pretty unconventional way to spend a Monday night (and definitely attracted some bemused looks from dog walkers...) so well done for getting stuck in!

After filling in our holes and covering them with leaves to confuse the squirrels, we ran back to the Bridge House for stretches. Excellent work team!

The rain held off just about long enough for us to get stuck in to our second task at Churchfields Recreation Ground this evening. We were met by the lovely Amanda (who brought snacks!) and set us to work sprucing up the area around Kendall Gate. The majority of us were pulling up weeds and neatening border edges while Stephen went to town with the loppers on some overgrown ivy. Meanwhile Catherine and Paul did a very professional (and rapid) job of painting over graffiti on fences at the entrance to the park.

Great work all!

For tonight's task we headed to the delightful Betts Park, home of the last remaining section of the Croydon canal and a lovely new obelisk "dedicated to all the people who never get memorialised".

A few weeks back the council did some work chopping down some dying trees but they just left a couple of piles of logs and ivy. Our job was to sort the logs from the ivy, building up the "compost heap" and leaving the logs - maybe they will be a path edge one day?!

It turned out ivy was stubborn as hell but we did manage to free it all from the big logs eventually 💪

Whilst all this was happening, Molly was on a solo mission to de-weed the entrance to the shed - I hope those splinters have come out?!

Lovely stuff everyone, and I can't wait for our knowledge exchange event! 🙌