5 Goodgymmers gave the Westbury Banks Nature Reserve a facelift through a bit of hardcore gardening.

Mindful Unwinding

Our Goodgymmers arrived at the Westbury Banks Nature Reserve to find that the site looked a bit untidy from the outside so we rolled our sleeves up and got on with the job of beautifying this much loved community space.

Julie, Latoya, and Sarah weeded and brushed to their hearts content the outside perimeter of the Reserve while Gramps and Rosa engaged on a bit of hardcore pruning in the inside of the fence. Julie in particular enjoyed unwinding the ivy from the fence before applying the chop. To be fair to her, it was a pretty relaxing affair, if I'm honest.

It was right about this time that our Sarah began shouting about pirri pirris.

What's a pirri pirri, you ask? Well, those little prickly seeds that stick to you while you're gardening, Kiwis lovingly call them pirri pirris. Every day is a school day with Goodgym Haringey.

Proving that we were no pirri pirri chickens, we cracked on and worked for a full hour before retiring to the local watering hole for a sport of rehydration.

Boom.

8 Goodgymmers dug deep as they helped the wonderful folk at Wolves Lane to transport a mountainous amount of soil from one side of the Centre to the other under a wonderful dusk sky.

A Barrel Of Laughter

It was party preparation Wolves Lane-style as we were tasked with moving a large mound of soil into tonne bags and some foundational beds in order to free up the track for easy access to the site. A straightforward mission for our team, who immediately armed themselves with spades, wheelbarrows, and pallet trucks and got on with the job at hand.

Gramps' mum, a veteran of Goodgym tasks, was in full Colombian whinge mood and her utterances in Spanish as she looked for opportunities to sit down were a constant source of entertainment. She even managed to rope in our resident Doctor Niamh for a mid-task massage.

In the meantime, you can't take Julie and Gramps anywhere without the two of them trying to put people in bags or bins, and there was some performative bag-posing worth of the Met Gala and an abortive attempt to ride the pallet truck - after a thorough risk assessment, mind.

The team worked tirelessly and by the time we reached Nurjehan o'clock, we were pretty pleased with our progress. We dust ourselves off and headed out into the sunset but not before making the time for some selfies and high fives.

Particular thanks to Dave for the fantastic timelapse vid!

A classic Goodgym Haringey night <3

Join us next week as we visit Tottenham Green for a multitude of tasks.

Four Goodgymmers helped the folk at Russell's Park Hub carry out a risk assessment and a thorough litter pick ahead of their Easter Egg Hunts on Saturday.

Kristina and Patrick joined Gramps nice and early for a litter pick of the area in the park, surrounding the cafe to ensure that there weren't any little things that could hurt any of the scores of children that were expected to join the Hunts.

Later on, Rosa joined them to finish completing a risk assessment and support Euclides run the Easter Egg Hunts

Happy Easter

Eight Goodgymmers danced and pranced as they quite literally brought the house down at Wolves Lane tonight.

Musical Interlude by the Dexy Midnight Goodgym Runners

(Disclaimer: this only vaguely works if you listen to Come on, Eileen while reading it )

Poor old Charlie Ray

Sounded fed up on the ladder

Pulling out nails with his fingers

Mama Rosa cried

"watch out for the rust"

__

You've smashed (so smashed)

The Wall (the wall)

Now I must say more than ever

__

Too-ra-loo-ra

Too-ra-loo-rye-ay

__

So that we can pull out this panel...

Come on, I lean

this way and you

*you lean that way *

And then everything

comes down.

__

But what is that smell?

My thoughts, I confess

Verge on that smell

Ah, come on, let me lean

A Symphony Of Destruction

Our Goodgymmers flocked to Wolves Lane Centre once again after our task there last week on a promise of being unleashed on a room with sledgehammers to demolish the space at the back of the main office to create a better control command for this ever-expanding community space.

Denise from Wolves Lane did not disappoint. Upon arrival, she pointed at the pile of tools, she pointed at the wall, then smiled as she put on some sick tunes on the box, and then closed the door and left us to our own devices. And, oh my goodness, we smashed the place up!

It's not every day that you are tasked with the job of breaking stuff but you must grab the opportunity with both hands when given the chance. It's not to say it was all fun and games. I mean, Latoya did dance a lot in between bouts of kicking the wall. And Sam seemed to channel some primal need for catharsis as she smashed the wood panels. And Veronika did smile a lot, as she seemed to be assessing her life choices and deciding whether being a stuff breaker could be a respectable career path. I could go on... But I'm sure you know what I mean.

As the panels came down, and the wooden frame proved to be nothing but a momentary hindrance, we had become a successful wrecking crew, all within a timeframe that would please our resident time-keeper.

Ever a hero, our Dave did a last bit tidying up, bringing up the last of the few rusty nails from the floor so no one has an unfortunate accident in the future.

A couple of selfies here and there, and we all headed home after a proper work out on a chilly, chilly night.

Boom!

6 Goodgymmers howled at the moon as they joined Denise at Wolves Lane for some destructive fun.

Six Hours

Here's a list of things you can do in six hours: you could watch a balloon filled with helium naturally deflate to 50% of its volume (promise never to ask Gramps how he knows this fact); you could serenely witness a high tide recede into a low tide on a secluded beach somewhere nice; you could enjoy Scorsese's Wolf(es Lane) Of Wall Street exactly twice in a row; you could get lost in your kitchen cooking fried chicken and donuts; or like the ardent hero of our piece, the fierce Louise C, you could spend a whole Wednesday afternoon somewhere in Tottenham, completing a supposedly easy Goodgym Mission that threatened to hijack the course of her life for what seemed like an interminably epoch (or, in this case, six hours).

Kudos to Louise for sticking with the kind of mission that would make Ethan Hunt baulk. Just don't ever piss her off when she's holding a crowbar (you had to be there :)

The Wolves Of Wolves (Lane) Street

"The only thing standing between you and your goal," bellows Di Caprio's Jordan Belfort in the Wolf of Wall Street, "is the bullshit story you tell yourself as to why you can't achieve it." Well, he clearly never stood against a wooden wall panel during a Goodgym evening, after being tasked with prising the whole thing apart by a very encouraging and bent-on-destruction task owner

Armed with a pointing hammer, a crowbar, and a couple of hoes (!) that's exactly what our Goodgymmers did. Charlie, Veronika, and Louise demolished skirting boards, wall panels, and whatnot with the wanton hunger of jungle trail blazers. And just to prove Picasso's wonderful axiom ("every act of creation begins with an act of destruction"), this has now led to an invitation next week for a sledgehammer session as we help the centre make way for a brand new room.

At the same time, our Nurjehan and Rosa refilled the beds at the Centre's Palm House with the contents of two industrial-sized bags of compost.

After an hour that flew by, we gathered all tools and put them away, took some selfies, said goodbye to the terrapins and ran away into the mild night with a smile on our lips.

Boom!

More shenanigans next week at the same time - you know where to find us! :)

7 Goodgymmers proved they weren't fusspots as they rolled their sleeves up, put some marigold gloves on, and sank their hands into vinegary water to wash plants pots for the Noel Park Big Local.

A Watched Pot Never Washes

Laurie from Noel Park Big Local had set up a handy wash basket chain for us to work on some serious potty washing. After a quick briefing where he explained that the Big Local have been collecting the pots throughout the year for an autumn bulb giveaway but the pots needed to be cleaned of all muck and fungi before they could be given away to residents to keep in their homes, he put us to work.

Our Goodgymmers wasted no time getting stuck in. It will come as no surprise to readers of these reports that #BadGymXtraordinnaire and power tool aficionada Julie took over the power wash duties, and along with Sarah they gave all the pots an initial blast before handing over to the wash chain. 

Nurjehan was in charge of the first bucket, filled with soapy water; Louise was in charge of the acidulant concoction of vinegar, soap and elbow grease, aka bucket number 2; and finally, Charlie was in charge of giving them all one good final soak. Rosa then transported them to a yard where they were to dry and have the final stage of their anti-fungisation - a good blast of sunlight.

Our Goodgymmers are always a well-oiled machine regardless of the task and they moved through the pile of pots at pace.  It was at this stage that Gramps started counting and asked everyone to take a guess at how many pots we would have cleaned and recycled by the end of the evening (Louise 80/ Sarah 134/ Julie 345/ Nurjehan 94/ Rosa 110/ Charlie 117/ Laurie 87).

After around a good hour under the rain, both natural and artificially-created by Julie, we called it quits and it was time for selfies and dancing but not before Gramps revealed the winner of the pots guessing comp. With a very respectable 95 pots washed and saved from the landfill through our efforts, we crowned Nurjehan our champion of the evening. Not much difference, I suppose, as she seems to stroll through life as the champion of the world. #Winning

It was getting chilly by then, so everyone set off on their way home/ pub/ delete as appropriate and Gramps stayed behind to help Laurie with the clearing up.

Boom.

Tune in next week for more fun and games.

8 Goodgymmers went on the pull tonight at the White Hart Rec Tiny Forest Project as they helped weed and prune this small sliver of green in North London.

Making The Best Forest Impressions

A warm welcome to Raj, Louise, and Michelle who joined us for their first ever GGHaringey task. They were amazing and slotted into the GGH madness without a minute of hesitation. Hope we haven't scared you away!

What is this? A forest for ants?

Michelle L, the Parks and Greenspace Volunteering Officer for Haringey Council, approached us with an invitation from Michael from the Friends of Woodside Park to come and help them look after their Tiny Forest in White Hart Rec. Needless to say, that was the kind of invitation we couldn't possibly say no to and our 8 Goodgymmers all made their way to the site on an unseasonably mild but dark October evening (mind you, one of our GGH's shared jackets made its first outing of the season as one of its unnamed regular thermosensitive customers got a bit chilly).

Anyway, once on site, we were briefed on the history of the Tiny Forest as well as the species of trees planted a year ago to create this lovely 600-trees-deep forest in the middle of the Rec. Our mission for the evening was to free up the roots of the small saplings from a multitude of weeds without pulling up any of the young trees in the dark. Hilarity ensues.

Having said that, our Goodgymmers were meticulous in their pulling and managed to spend an hour in the pitch black without pulling up any trees (full disclosure, Gramps did act as a makeshift human lamppost for the evening so it wasn't completely dark but it was certainly ill-lit at best). Or, at least, that's what we thought - until Michael from the Friends of Woodside Park started waving a young oak at us that had been pulled in error. After an emergency replanting session, we prayed to the Tiny Forest gods and are pleased to say that we think all's well.

After an hour's honest work, our Goodgymmers packed up their things, took the customary group selfie, and then set off home with a few more smiles in their pockets than when they arrived. Boom.

Join us next week for more fun and games.

5 Speedy Goodgymmers made their way around Bounds Green for a leaflet drop on behalf of the Springfield Park Fun Day next month. And dropped it they did, reader! Dropped it like it's hot!

The Goodgymmer Always Knocks Twice

Dave, Clare, Charlie and Gramps met under an almost full Harvest Moon at Blue House Yard for a nice and quick 2kish run to task. Along the way they picked up Rosa (aka Mama Gramps) and they were ready for the task at hand.

Haringey Council and the good folk at TCV are hosting a Fun Day at Springfield Park in October as they canvass and mobilise the community for some future improvements to this community green space.

Armed with a multitude of leaflets and a map of the areas to be targeted, our Goodgymmers began snaking their way through Bounds Green. Oh, it's always a great sight to behold. As usual, Dave sped away instantly like the Energizer Bunny, but tonight he had competition from Clare who is quite clearly a natural at this task and picked up speed straight away too. Our resident speedster Charlie kept them company while Gramps and Mama Gramps moved at a more gingerly pace a few miles behind them.

After around 30 minutes, we had covered all the roads that we had been asked to leaflet but as we still had a few of them, we improvised and carried on for a bit longer. We even managed to hand a few out to passersby who were bemused by our efforts.

A few pics here, a few laughs there, we were all done by 8pm. Boom!

Join us next week for more fun and games!

4 non-arachnophobic Goodgymmers got entangled in a myriad of spiderwebs as they lent a hand to the Friends of Westbury Banks Nature Reserve.

Queen Julie

All hail the all-conquering Julie who completed her 100th marathon over the weekend. Hero.

Congrats also to everyone else who completed Julie's 100th race or the Big Half on what was frankly a ridiculously hot day for it. You all rule! <3

Into The Spiderverse

The beautiful sign to the Westbury Banks Nature Reserve had to come down following a number of letter thefts and weather damage so it felt fitting that we were invited to do the deed, having been the team entrusted with putting them up in the first place a couple of years back.

When Gramps arrived there, however, the site was a spider heaven and the risk assessment check for the site involved clearing a path to the letters through a multitude of 8-legged creatures. Even for a non-arachnophobe, this was an icky job.

All the same, by the time Dave, Rosa, and Nurjehan arrived to the site, Gramps was mostly in one piece (if a bit evolutionary shaken in a deep and private place) and our team got on with the job at hand.

First we did a thorough litter pick of the site, so the Reserve looked ace from the road once the letters came down.

Then, one by one, the letters came down. I'd like to say it was a sombre and respectful affair, but the team of Dave and Rosa were absolutely ruthless. The letters tumbled down faster than a 9 pound wheel of Double Gloucester cheese on Cooper's Hill.

Once we had stored the old letters away and removed all non-recyclable tags, we called it quits for the evening and we all headed home.

Join us next week for a new task at Ally Pally!