Tonight's activities involved a visit to FROGG (Friends of Grenville Gardens) to help them do some good. FROGG are responsible for maintaining the public park and gardens on Grenville Road, which includes a kids' play area, raised vegetable beds and lots of lovely plants.

To start the evening 23 of us lined up at Highbury Pool for a briefing with lots of news including the headline that Patrick L has recently reached 50 good deeds faster than anybody else. Well done, Patrick.

In other Patrick-related news, Patrick M was tonight's start baker and continued the trend of people bringing along homemade biscuits. Patrick had never made biscuits before but managed to make THREE DIFFERENT TYPES. Oaty ones, chocolate chips and a crunchy dark chocolate variety. They were all delicious. Who's our next baker gonna be?

We had along a massive seven first-time GoodGymmers for the evening. A big welcome from us all to Nic, Philippa, Lynette, Phoebe, Jacynth, Kat and Morten. And a separate but equally large welcome to first-timers to Islington Amy and Gus.

We split into two groups for the run up to Grenville Road. The first group took the scenic route - especially Melissa and Helen who took such a scenic route that Patrick L and Caitlin ended up forming a search party. But they got there in the end and still managed to get in 5 minutes of good-doing. They certainly got a good workout.

Jessica of FROGG had had four jobs for us to tackle for the night.

First -with daylight fast running out - we had to run around the gardens picking up any stray litter. There were a few nasty bits and bobs to be found: wrappers, cigarette butts, lollipop sticks and even a couple of syringes!

There was also a touch of hoeing to do around one of the beds and a few leaflets to deliver locally to promote the gardens.

With all that dealt with we all got stuck into the main task of the night: removing a row of stubborn bushes. We cut, snipped, lopped, chopped, heaved, grunted, pulled, yanked, twisted and cleared and made quite the impact. Plenty more left for us to do on future weeks though, and more importantly plenty of opportunity for bush-related puns. In fact, we'll play some Kate Bush next week while we work. Is that an incentive to come along?

It was dark when we finished. Actually, it was pretty dark when we started. Let's embrace the onset of winter and get the headtorches and portable floodlights out for next week. As you can see from the photos most of us are already kitted out in reflective gear.

For the journey back we split into three groups led by Patrick, Danica and Simon. Two of the groups set off at their own steady pace and the third did an interval-style workout on the way home while working on good running form. Great efforts from all.

Back at the pool we had a stretch (most of us did, Patrick L stood around trying desperately to become the fastest person to eat 50 biscuits or something) and quizzed everybody on what the best meal of the day was Lots of votes for breakfasts (apart from one "I hate breakfast!"), lunches and dinners; a couple of suppers and teas; a high tea; another type of tea which sounded fancy but I've forgotten; a biscuit break; but no midnight snacks!

We're back at FROGG for the next two weeks. Let's DESTROY those bushes.

Keep running and keep doing good,

Simon

P.S. Don't forget Paul's hill session next Sunday. Top workout guaranteed.

Cute and Cuddly

Great to see lots of enthusiastic mew-comers to Islington this week. A big welcome to Patrick, Xavier, Kyle and Lynsey who all had really paw-sitive cat-titudes and pounced on the chance to do some good while getting fit.

Furry and Stroky

We started as is often the case with some alien circuits on the fields: squat jumps, lunges, star jumps and burpees were the evening's prescription. Tough stuff, but all performed meow-nificently. That set us up nicely for the uphill 3k trek to our task.

Meiow, meiow, meiow.

Following up on last week's journey to Caxton House we were back there this Monday to do a spot of clearing in the gardens. We split into two teams: one set about pruning overgrowth near the front of the building with long-handled secateurs while the other set about tidying up the paths near the planters that we painted last week (instructions from Sue were simple "there's nothing on the ground that can't be pulled up".)

As usual there was a quick paws for refreshments. This week there were special biscuits all the way from Land's End and Sue had supplied even more biscuits and water.

This box is so cool

We were also kept company by a very friendly kitteh who told us tails of being banished from the community centre thanks to allergies. We all felt very sorry and gave a nice stroke as she rolled around on the floor. She even tried to help with a bit of digging and got in four of the photos. On an unrelated note a poorly-written message was found later on suggesting that we start bringing chicken legs and fish instead of biscuits on future visits =^..^=

Following a tidy up, Sue said "thanks for helping meow-t" and took a group photo or two (with cat included of course).

Other People's Gardens

We were feline good so split into three groups for the journey back with a three-minute gap between each. But faster groups didn't get a mew-ment's rest. To fill the time we got involved with some side-stepping and other drills to keep the heart rates up. Heart rates were also raised by that blasted cat racing across the main road like a maniac then racing back again. Show off.

Sitting just out of reach

We finally finished the evening back at the pool with a stretch at a record-breaking 20.48. Next week's goal is to finish on time. It'll happen. Promise (it's paw-ssible I'm lion)

Oh, it's 3am? I'll just jump on your head

A big thanks to Sarah and Patrick for sticking around helping Simon search for his car key afterwards who are rewarded with free biscuits for life*

You want another hour in bed? I'm just gonna meiow relentlessly even though I'm fully fed

Steve was spied early on in the evening passing some contraband (we assume) Vegemite to Mark. This sparked the big question for the evening: Vegemite vs Marmite. There were a couple of votes for each, and then a couple for "Kiwi Marmite" (paw-lease!), but most people just agreed that they were both disgusting. Yup.

Oh yeah, I left a mutilated bird under your pillow

Con-cat-ulations to everybody on a job well done. I feel so fur-tunate to have led some a claw-some group (I grant that these puns aren't that claw-ver and purr-haps I should stop, but I find them hiss-terical). See you next week when we're going to Barnsbury Community Centre

Si

16 runners ran to paint and weed a community centre.

On a lightly cloudy and humid evening 16 goodgymers met outside Highbury Pool. Goodgym was assembled and we were ready to do good in Islington. Our ancestral leader Simon was on holiday so the wonderful Ivo was leading in his orange New Balance Prototype top.

"joy"

To everyone's joy we did some core exercises while doing our name & number count, this is a great way of preparing your body for a run as it gets your heart rate up!

Our task this week was at Caxton House Community Centre in north Islington. We had a steady 3.5km run up to there, generally sticking as a group. The entire run was on a slight incline but we knew this would bode us well on our return.

" swift arrival"

With our swift arrival at Caxton House the wonderful volunteers informed us they needed 6 newly planted beds painted and then general weeding done. We split into a teams and got to work. Over the 30 minutes we had all the beds were beautifully painted and the back garden had been cleared with weeds. Well done guys!

"always have biscuits"

Goodgym Islington has gone to Caxton House several times now, so much so the great volunteers always have biscuits and cold water available for us. This helped fuel our return journey - thanks guys!

On our return Ivo gave us options of 3 running paces: 30 minutes & over 5km pace 25-30 minutes 5km sub 25 minute 5km pace

"staggered"

We had a staggered start of 4 minutes between each group, with the idea for everyone to finish at Highbury Pool at the same time. Group 3 caught up with group 2 around 2/3 of the way back and then we all arrived back within a minute of each other - great timing skills Ivo!

We all did a vital stretch session led by Ivo, talked about the approaching Race the Train event and other races to get involved in, before saying our goodbyes.

Another smashing GoodGym task done - excellent work everyone!

A few first timers this evening. Welcome to Alan and Anna. Alan's a keen distance runner and has "persuaded" Anna to train for a half marathon. Let's hope GoodGym can help them get a few miles in the legs. We also welcomed Helen and Caitlin who did a great job on their first outing. And lovely to see Hackney-ite Flynn doing a bit of tourism.

There were two tasks tonight. Not only did we have to deliver a ton of promotional material for Caxton House's Hillrise Summer Festival, we also had to go and tidy up an adventure playground

Since the Caxton House job involved quite a bit of distance, hardcore runners Patrick, Aidan, Ryan and Caitlin were recruited for the 7k round trip. Rucksacks on, they stormed off into the sunset and set about dodging dogs, climbing steep steps and practising their delivery action.

The rest of us headed over to Lumpy Hill, one of 12 adventure playgrounds in Islington providing a wonderful service for kids in the area. We also delivered a few spare leaflets to houses a bit further south en route.

There was a mild panic when we arrived at the adventure playground and it seemed to be locked up. We shouted, rang the bell and rattled the gates all to no response, until Steve did a bit of surveying and discovered there were two playgrounds on the same stretch of road.

Once on the proper site, we were shown in by Kerry and Jenna. There were quite a few jobs to do: Alan and Anna set about some "brooming" (that's Irish for "sweeping") to remove any nasty stones from the front of the garden while others donned gloves and spread out around the garden to rid it of nasty stinging nettles (ask Flynn about how stingy they were) and litter. Most of us made friends with ants. Some of us were still feeling ants later on in the evening. Some of you can probably feel ants crawling up your legs now? Can you? Are you itchy? Do you need to scratch? What about yawning? Anybody feel like a nice big yawn? YAAWWWNN! Sarah pointed out it wasn't just ants we had to worry about - we also had a few antipodeans in our midst (they also crawl up your legs sometimes). Ozzie vs. Kiwi debate coming up in a few weeks, we reckon.

With a nice big area swept clear we spread out a large sheet of tarpaulin and a group of us placed a gigantic inflatable pool on top. It was swiftly filled with air (via pump, Steve was relieved he didn't have to blow) and we started filling it with water while giving it the odd yank to remove creases. It was quite a large pool so it should be full in about seven weeks.

With the site looking much clearer it was time to head off and do some relays on the fields. But wait a minute, why would you go and do relays when you've got an adventure playground to mess about in? OK, sod the relays. We swang and climbed and slid down slides, threw frisbees and kicked footballs, and some of us screamed.

We finished the evening with a tennis ball game. We paired up: one member was responsible for dropping the ball and the other for running and catching it before it bounced twice. A great way of improving reaction time and speed and a great workout.

Biscuits were HOMEMADE this week. And were supplied by Anna. So tasty! Who's making next week's?

The debate for the evening was supplied by Bridget: "Should people boycott air shows?" (there's been suggestions that they should because they're dangerous). For the first time in Islington Debate history we all agreed and said that no, people should not boycott them.

Big round of applause to Patrick for 17 good deeds last month

Well done Sarah for 50th good deed. Looks like Ros's 50th is imminent.

And remember drinks on Thursday

Planter painting next week

Simon