Two years to the week after my first ever GoodGym run, I led this week’s GoodGym Camden group back to where it all started, at St Mary’s flats. Unfortunately, the weather today wasn’t quite as nice as it was back in 2015 – in fact it was one of the wettest GGC’s ever!

Still, 16 hardy souls turned up, and half of us headed to St Mary’s, a housing block we’ve been to a few times before to help resident John keep the garden and courtyard looking in good shape. This week our main task was weeding – picking up weeds from the pavement cracks, the flower beds and some of the individual residents gardens. Everyone did a great job despite the grim weather!

Meanwhile, Jess and Meredith led the other half of the group to the nearby St Christopher’s flats, where we continued with the job we started last week – some great photos courtesy of Steve.

Report from Jess:

One of the residents, Dave, is trying to get the courtyard looking nice again. When they moved to the flats six years ago, his partner created a lovely garden for the local community. But sadly he passed away two years ago and careless builders have wrecked most of his hard work.

We got to work straight away, clearing several black bags of litter, twigs and rubble from the flower beds and exclaiming over the treasures we found - highlights included a cigarette lighter, some rusty nails and a really big snail. Spirits were high despite the rain lashing down!

Then the fun part - transforming the empty beds by planting a lovely selection of plants and flowers, using our best artistic skills. Luckily the rain had made the ground nice and soft for easy digging! With water streaming down our backs and dripping off our noses we surveyed our work proudly, before nipping over to Granary Square to meet the other group.

After the task we were due to do our monthly time trial, but we decided it was a bit too wet – we didn’t want anyone tripping on the slightly slidey surface around Granary Square. So we settled on a more gentle lap around Central St Martins instead, before heading back to base for a nice (indoor) stretch.

Thanks again to everyone that made it out tonight, hopefully the weather will be better next week!