Ten Goodgymmers journeyed deep into the heart of Haringey's latest tiny forest for a spot of dregrassification.

Olfactory Blues

Our Goodgymmers ran a cool mile to the New Road Park Tiny Forest as part of the Tiny Forest Wildlife Count. Friends of the tiny forest met us there and after a temporary misunderstanding around whether Gramps was going to foot the bill for all the Big Fat Cats bonuses at Thames Water, we were pleased when Mina from the Friends group turned up with tools, bags, and clear mandate for our lot: de-weed this poor tiny forest so the trees get more of the rain water into their thirsty roots - whenever it comes.

Say no more. Our Goodgymmers pulled grass, yarrow, and dandelions to their hearts' content, while discussing the merits of medieval mead-making and the evolutionary reasons of why a little bit of pain is good for you.

All the while, Gramps was keeping a beady eye on the lookout for any sign of wildlife. Sam came to his rescue, in a way, when she alerted him to, as she put it, a very faecaly smell in the area she was weeding. Reader, she must hit the vulpine scatological motherload because we all had to move away from the area. All newcomers were warned to avoid Sam's behind because of the faecaly smell - 'behind' used here purely in its geographical sense rather than anatomical and in no way for comedic purposes at poor Sam's expense. No. Never.

After about an hour, our heroes stopped for the evening after a rather successful weeding session and we all headed home satisfied with a good day's work.

Boom.

Join us for another tiny forest expedition next week as we visit the folk at White Hart Rec.

3 runners dashed from Blue House Yard to Meadow Orchard, only to realise there was no GoodGymers meeting us at the task, so we could have ambled along at a party pace.

But that didn't stop us from working flat out at the task! The meadow had a tonne of wood chip delivered, which the fungus was starting to turn onto good quality mulch outside in the car park. With some solid shovel work, we cleared the lot before sunset! Starting to reclaim an old spoils ditch into a usable path. Despite all the goodness this will add to the soil, there was no worms yet. Sorry little robin assistant!

5 Goodgymmers proved they're not afraid of the dark as they lend a hand at Woodside Park as the Friends groups gets on with the work of rehabilitating the tree beds at the Braille Garden area of the park

The One Where Ed turned up and saw what the task was and went 'I'll just go home for 2 mins to pick up my headtorch' and disappeared for exactly an eternity. Poor Paul was worried sick - ed. it might have been more like 4 minutes

Armed with just a couple torches since Gramps big light has decided to do one and head on the long journey to Big Light Heaven, our Goodgymmers were tasked with clearing an outbreak of the always-lovely but over-vigorous green alkanet from the grounds of the Braille Garden area of Woodside Park.

Michael from the Friends group kindly gave us a brief historical overview of the garden, created after WWII as a place where blind locals could come and partake in a bit of gardening, with aromatic planting and braille sign making the task easier for them. Time inexorably marches on, however, and with time the gardens fell into disrepair, becoming a couple of overgrown tree beds. Enter the Friends group!

With a small grant in their pocket and the support and expertise of the Wood Green's Postcode Gardener scheme, the Friends group is working to reinstate some of the beauty and accessibility to the gardens. In other words, they know how to pull at our sentimental Goodgym heart strings...

Even though it was a bit dark, our Goodgymmers pulled the deep-rooted alkanets from one of the beds ahead of a planting session this weekend. Slowly but surely, we got rid of a few wheelbarrowfuls worth of alkanets and weeds.

We also did a gentle litter pick and got rid of a number of empty beer cans, clear evidence that the gardens are still very much in use if only for a different sensory experience.

Come 8pm, Gramps called an end to the procedure but not before some selfies and and assurance to lovely Michael that we will be back whenever the Friends needs a hand. He then tried to poach one of our runners but I'm not sore Gotta respect the hustle!

Join us on Sunday for birdwatching, and next week for more GG shenanigans in the park

Our esteemed leader Euclides was unavailable this evening, so Sarah stepped in to lead the group to Lordship Recreation Ground.

Task owner Ximena was also absent, but had given full instructions: we were to spread woodchip around the base of various benches and bald patches around the parkrun and junior parkrun courses.

Equipped with two wheelbarrows, two shovels and a rake, the group made short work of the task, returning to the woodchip pile several times to ensure any potentially muddy patches were well covered.

Meanwhile Dave eschewed the use of tools and developed his own wheelbarrow filling strategy. As Paul said "he's literally the human Swiss Army knife"

As 8pm rolled around the equipment was packed away, Haringey hi 5s were exchanged and our heroes disappeared into the night.

Kudos to Claire for tonight's pun!