As a spook-tacular trick or treat, Patrick led the GG Islington squad ghouls and showed they ain't afraid of the park. The devilish dozen united in Islington's biggest square and helped to rake up bags of leaves, trim back the edges of the flower beds and plant daffodil bulbs ready for the next spring - that's a scary amount of work!

While Simon was away, Patrick came to play. It was mercifully mild and dry, and not exactly bone-chilling weather! A lucky seven of us met at the Emirates and we were pleased to welcome first timers to an Islington group run, Victoria and Annikki.

We jogged as one wolf pack and seemed to hit every traffic light on the way but made it to the Square in pitch black! Thankfully, most people had brought headtorches 🔦 and Patrick had brought extras. And in the dark were five more GoodGym bodies, our amazing g-host Anna and some local residents with their dogs wearing glowstick collars!

As usual, Anna was well prepared and had loads of hard work for us to do:

• Team secret rakers - it's so mild but the golden leaves are falling down. Team rakers were taken to a secret location to rake and bag (and stomp on) as many leaves as they could fit in three big bags. Steve took a great photo of the team but it was haunted 👻
• Team dark bulb moment - another group , supported by "The Twig lady" ( not Twiggy), were responsible for planting new life! It was quite comforting to think about Spring already as we enter the darker days
• Team shear terror - terror for the weeds only! Our team were in the flower bed enclosures and clearing out the interlopers. Hanry was given the trusty shears and they felt old. It turns out they were made not in Germany, but West Germany.

Pop quiz answer: The Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and these shears were older than some of the team!

Finally, for a Halloween special, Patrick brought treats and inducted Victoria to some of Britain's finest candy/sweets 🍬🍭 .

All was left was for a team photo 📸, run back to base and a reminder about Friday's Halloween run and next week's group run with a social. Great effort team and let's hope we can help Thornhill win another gong at the London in Bloom awards. Ghoul be back in Simon's safe hands from next week.

On Monday evening, Area Activator Simon jogged over to the Arsenal Community Hub on Benwell Road for our regular Goodgym Islington group run meet-up. Little did he know, the streets were full of football fans getting ready for the match! Despite this, Robert successfully navigated the busy roads to meet up for a social run past the match day stands, excited families and pub bound friends out for a good night, towards Market Road Gardens off Caledonian Road.

Upon arrival, we met up with Steve, Caitlin and Mali at the Heyward Adventure Playground site, a lovely wild permaculture garden designed for local residents and visitors of the connected community youth club. All of our required tools and equipment were found in "Florence", the former milk float at the back of the gardens- wheelbarrow, clippers and gloves.

Our task for the evening (set up by Octopus Community Network) was to cut away around a set of pathways and trails set across the wild flower gardens. Nettles and ivy has started to grow over the paths, becoming potential obstacles for children and parents. We were careful to not cut away to much of the greenery, as the plan is to maintain as much natural growth as possible for the local animals and insects (including the friendly snails brought out by the rainfall earlier in the evening).

We had made some massive headway over course of 45 minutes, especially between the 5 Goodgymmers- can't wait to see our progress in the daylight!

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Halloween Headtorch Run

On Friday 29th October, we will be leading a special social run across Hampstead Heath and the extension, in the dark! Approximately 10km total distance, on potentially soft and muddy ground. Starting and finishing at the Bull and Gate Pub in Kentish Town.

Sign up here, and look put for spooky goings-on!

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/ghoulgym-halloween-headtorch-run-hampstead