GoodGym and MIND in Camden: A Good Man is CHARD to Find

Chard to find

It was a small group who congregated with Nichola and the Castlehaven volunteers today!

I was first on the scene and soon escorted out to the Hub garden to tidy up some chard planters. The area was congested: plants needed removing before they took hold, which meant only the largest, suitably spaced baby chards retained their turf. The others went to, er, the ant home.

And then Paul arrived, much to my delight, to join us complete with coffee grounds for Nichola's gardens. He wasted no time in settling down to an indoor task or sowing seeds into plant pots to be sold.

Paul finished before me, such was my perfectionism in wanting to give the new, soon-to-be bushier plants a shot at survival, I practically took a ruler to the little leafy rows. Paul proceeded to take his foliage waste, and later mine, along with Nichola to the worms, who would make good use of it all, along with brown paper. When feeding the wormery, Nichola discovered there were more ants than she would have liked and set about searching for the Queen Ant. But she was nowhere to be found. Hunting down a Queen Ant in a giant pile of dark soil isn't the easiest task.

And so Paul and I decided to blitz the watering as it was the last of our May runs, and so a team effort saw me (small, and wearing trainers ) clambering over timber to fill watering cans before passing watering can after watering can to Paul (tall, able to access the higher plants) to give the garden a real bit of hydration on this delightfully sunny day.

Park Life

And so we said our cheerios and headed off to the park for this week's fitness session. Paul wanted to work on fitness for multiple goals, and so we tried out some plank shoulder taps to help get him back to rowing, before whizzing through burp-free burpees (good for the heart) and standing hip extensions to, well, support the hips. We finished with a good stretch and made our way back to the tube, me navigating by instinct ("I feel like we are going in the right direction, Paul, yes, I sense we are.") and Paul opting to stick with Citymapper ("Mmm. I'll check on my 'phone, and just get software confirmation, I think.")

And then we were at the tube, back to bustling, vibrant Camden Road, and said our cheerios - plants watered, seeds sown, and, as always after gardening with Paul, I was clued up on everything from the author of Gulliver's Travels, to the latest gadgets for the best drinking water. Another wonderful Wednesday.

GoodGym and Healthy Minds will next meet at midday at Mind in Camden on Wednesday 5th June. The session runs from 12-1.30pm. Details can be found here).