Today was a beautiful day!

After our mornings of Junior Parkrunning, where we had our inaugural Hornfair Junior Parkrun and an impressive 28 children (and I know because we were the last) we all congregated in Hornfair Park in the sweltering heat to share what we're grateful for over the last week. The responses ranged from a spontaneous dinner with friends to the beautiful summer we're finally enjoying. After a quick and brutal round of duck, duck, goose we jogged through Charlton Park before deciding to walk the rest of the way, being unused to such heat in our little island of rain, and cloudy skies. As Bea tells her mum: "it's hot, I don't know how hot it's just either people have told me it's hot or I feel it's hot."

It was lovely to be joined by Tom on the fly before a Lido swim and Cat met us at the common after an eventful and rather hair raising cycle ride over (she'll have to tell you the story).

At the common we were met by the friendly Friends of group who do amazing work coordinating local efforts to keep the common a place for us all to enjoy. Today was a mammoth litter picking session after lots of house removal waste was fly tipped on the common and we spent a while picking up glass, boards and plaster as well as the usual bottles and plastic...and the odd sock.

Well done team, a great effort and lots of reward as the common looked much cleaner after our session there. It was nice to be rewarded by some beautiful blackberries on the way home!

I'll leave us with a poem posting on the Friends of Woolwich Common Fb group the other day which I enjoyed from Brian Bilston’s Days Like These:

It's hard not to feel bitter about the litter

Crochety and cruppish about the rubbish

ill-disposed to all those who ill dispose

but at least business is picking up, i suppose

A team of GoodGymers helped out as 28 children took part in the very first Hornfair Park junior parkrun in Charlton - filling in a gap in the local junior parkrun map and hopefully giving a boost to this forgotten-about park. This will be a regular GoodGym task, although you might have to bring your own cake in the coming weeks...

I remember watching 60 Minute Makeover.

I remember thinking why does Mum take weeks to redecorate.

I remember saying Mum, we could do this in an hour.

I was wrong, folks, and these thoughts circled as we arrived at the Brady for our fourth visit. We'd previously unscrewed brackets, popped out loose rawlplugs, heaved sticky rawlplugs, collectively learnt how to use Polyfilla, worked out the difference between a primer and a normal paint, and applied a primer coat.

Today, our wonderful group of AJ, Suzanna (on her first good deed - congratulations!!), Steve, and Tom were painting our main coat. Choosing our brush or roller of choice, we shared stories and conversation as we turned this community space a warm shade of cream. Two hours disappeared along with the paint, and we made a big dent in the work we need to do to finish the space.

Thanks, everyone, for your work, time, and company this morning - we made a big difference today - and I really appreciate it!!