Today at least nine GoodGymmers met up to help the Canal and River Trust with their "Towpath Taskforce" volunteering session along Old Ford Lock, near Stratford.

Not too long after we got there, one of the regular volunteers gave a short speech: the main organiser for today's volunteering session was MIA, and they were going to give us a short health and safety briefing before putting us onto some tasks that needed doing anyway while they continued to try getting in touch with him/her (It ultimately turned out that they'd gone to the wrong Old Ford Lock! 😅)

We were cool with the new plan. The main takeaway from the health and safety briefing was you can (in very rare cases) get an infection from canal water that's somehow linked to rat urine 🙃 If anyone gets any flu-like symptoms 2-3 weeks after this (which, it being flu season, may happen), be sure to tell your GP about the happy morning you spent frollocking around the canals.

Following this revelation, our group of 9 were split into two teams, Team Slim Pickings and Team Hoe-path.

Team Slim Pickings had, well, very slim pickings as they litter picked along the canal. The main culprit seemed to be cigarette ends, which were particularly bunched around bridges and other water features. I assume that people simply like to feel like an angsty character in a foreign language film while puffing on a slim cigarette 🤷🏼‍♀️

Team Hoe-path used some tools (I assume hoes) to remove some greenery (I didn't look too closely) from a paved circular area. It looked as though Frankie, especially, was having lots of fun as she scraped away. Hopefully someone took before and after pictures so that they can adequately reflect on their excellent hoe-ing 😄👍🏻 I'll update the report if I get any pictures of it :)

Thanks to everyone for coming. The next Hackney group run is this Tuesday at 6:45 at the e5 Bakehouse. Sign up details are here 👈🏻 See you guys there/then!