Four soggy Goodgymmers helped KTCF set up for their Apple Day celebrations; moving tables and chairs and setting up marquees under the close supervision of goats, donkeys, sheep, and a cow.

4 Goodgym marshals (Emily, Alison, Giulia and Simon) answered a last minute call out for volunteers at Caledonian Park junior parkrun this morning. This 2km free weekly time trial is always in need of extra hands for course marshalling, time keeping, barcode scanning and tail walking duties, so that 4-14 year old kids from the local area can experience the opportunity to run independently and safely.

Despite some heavy rain and an emergency call to The Tolpuddle Café (there were signs of a break-in, and smashed glass surrounding the entrance), cheering and supporting our runners on a Sunday morning proved to be the best start for the day. Many of our crew made their way over to the Kentish Town Apple Festival afterwards, while AA Simon chose to enjoy some warm coffee and cake instead!

We will be back again next week for a spooky edition! Sign up here to get involved:

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/volunteer-at-caledonian-junior-parkrun-half-term-help-b670c7e2-0349-494a-9129-de06bbc8ca2d

Five GoodGymers including first timer to Thorlands, Giulia from GoodGym Camden met up Simon at the entrance of the "Walled Garden". After our introductions and brief history of Thorlands, we were told the task we had at hand, which was to cut down the buddleia that was affecting the wall structure between the "Walled" garden and the "Forest" garden.

Without hesitation, the team got on it. They split the task as such: Joao was lopping the bigger branches with the help of Sam after he took some photos and put on Lindy's 90s/00s punk playlist. Lindy, Giulia and Nathan strip the buddleia down into three parts - seed heads and other weedy bits in one bag, green and young stems to be cut into the compost or compost bag and the more sturdy wood/branches were kept to the side to be used as pea sticks in the future.

We were going through this task quite quickly until the rain came and we had to take shelter during of which Simon told us about the harvest he was picking for us. Yet, 10 minutes later the rain had subside and we continued with this task before heading into the "Forest" garden for a last 20 minutes tidy-up as it was needed with the amount of rain and sunshine we've had.

Our treat at the end was a lovely bag of greens, which we took on our merrily way.