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.

Seven Goodgymmers enjoyed a peaceful night of shovelling manure and wood chippings at the wonderfully tranquil Meadow Orchard in Crouch End.

When Push Comes To Shovel

After a whole day dominated by a sky that augured imminent downpours, it was in the end a lovely, sunny evening at the Meadow Orchard as our Goodgymmers assembled for an evening of tasks.

It was amazing to see Queen Khan make her glorious return after conveniently finding an excuse to spend a few weeks in bed during the cold months of winter - but we'll forgive her because she wasted no time in getting into the flow of things (much to Gramps and Niamh's chagrin who were terrified to stymie her recovery). Welcome back and all that!

Nurj, Niamh, Dave, Sam, Julie, and Charlie wasted no time in attacking a massive pile of wood chippings that had been left for the Orchard in the car park outside. Armed with shovels, plastic containers, and wheelbarrows, our Goodgymmers began transporting the chippings into site and spreading it in a variety of beds and storage piles. Our busy bees buzzed and like a well oiled machine, the pile grew smaller and smaller by the minute. So much so, in fact, that Katie from the Friends group took a splinter squad to help move a massive bag of manure into the beds as well. Sam and Julie shovelled it into place in no time.

We even had time to explore the site a bit, take pictures of tadpoles, imbibe some freshly brewed cuppas, almost break a hammock, and take some selfies in the glorious crepuscular light. All in an hour's work. Boom.

Chapmans Green has requested our help looking after some new plants and the by-now named Goodgym bed so we're going there next week - you should come!  

Thank you so much to everyone who came along to cheer today for the amazing runners doing such an iconic achievement.

More importantly we celebrate all of the amazing goodgymmers who undertook the marathon, it is an incredible feat to start one let alone finish one and you should all be so proud of yourselves!

Bit shout-out to Bethan Critchley jumping in at Mile 12 as a supporter helping runners around the course! What a superstar you are!

I've already listed the cheer party for next year. You can sign up here who knows, if you enter the ballot for next year perhaps it'll be you we are cheering on ;)

3 runners and 1 cyclist appeared Chapmans Green to get into some serious weeding.

Alex reached out to us before the task, reminding us to bring along head torches. But with the clocks going forward at the weekend, we had plenty of light through to Nurjehan-o'clock.

We started the task with a brief tour of the old bowling green, which GGH has helped to transform. It's turning into a lovely orchard. Crab Apple jelly coming this autumn. Then out to the public park, and over to the Allium, Marigold, and Lavender bed, we planted up previously. It was being taken over by grasses, and some sort of creeping vine from beyond the pale.

Hand rakes were particularly effecting at gathering up large bundles of the creeper. The soil was clearly very fecund with amount of weeds that had sprung up, and the amount of worms hiding just below the surface. Bodes well for those spring flowers soon! Before too long we'd filled 4 bin bags full. And Alex could start covering the ground with some weed preventing mulch. With the locals admiring our handiwork, we waved goodbye and headed off into the (now conveniently timed) sunset.

4 Goodgymmers hankered after welly boots and head torches as they lent a hand in the dark at George Meehan House for a spot of lawn surgery.

The Beast At The Gates

Our four Goodgymmers arrived at the gates of George Meehan House for an early start to meet Luke from GrowN22 who needed a hand sorting out the flower meadow in the Wedding Gardens of George Meehan House. They arrived, all smiles and high fives but that quickly changed.

Enter The Beast.

Mylo, a Cerberus trapped in the body of the cutest Dachshund you have ever seen, guarded the gates and his human Luke with tenacious care. He barked and barked as our Goodgymmers settled into the task for the night.

It was a very muddy affair which made it very slippery underfoot but a lot easier to get rid of the top layer of grassy soil from the wildflower meadow in readiness for the 150 sunflowers, currently being lovingly grown in Luke's flower nursery somewhere in N22.

Very soon, we realised Mylo's barking was simply him trying to tell us he wanted to get involved, and before you knew it, he was digging along with Clare, Julie, and Charlie as Gramps stood around pestering our Goodgymmers for photos.

At around 7:30, and having lost the one source of light we had to low battery, we decided to call it an evening.

We all took turns at getting Mylo to do tricks and give him treats and call him a good boy, and he even joined in the high fives at the end. What a rock star.

Come next week! It's another early start but always fun as we visit Traid on Wood Green High Road.

Karaoke may be Japanese for empty orchestra but there certainly wasn't anything empty about our Goodgymmers performance as 30 of them orchestrated a fun night in the wild lands of Haringey.

Top Of The Pops

It wasn't the most auspicious of starts for this month's Goodgym Social as our very own Goodgym Haringey decided to host a party night bang on in the middle of a yellow weather warning and as the hills of North London became impromptu waterfalls. As a small squad ran to Rowan's from the pre-party task, we all mused how many of the whopping 31 Goodgymmers signed up for the party would actually fight their way through the inclement weather to attend a knees up in Finsbury Park. The consensus was that we expected around 15 people to show up and we would have called that a good innings. Oh, reader, how wrong we were.

One by one, they all started arriving. Soggy, tardy, smiling - they all looked sublime in what was a washout of an evening elsewhere.

Drinks flowed, as did the chat, some people even braved the rather radioactive-looking burgers and before you knew it, 30 of us were sitting around having a jolly old time under the both metaphorical and literal Goodgym flag in the corner. Alas, it can't all be fun so just as everyone was relaxing into the night, GGHaringey's Gramps pounced on the innocent, unexpecting Goodgymmers with an indecent proposal they just couldn't say no - karaoke time.

Now I've heard there was a secret chord / that David played, and it pleased the Lord but the good ol' King had nothing on our crimson-tinged canaries as they sang song after song with gusto, enthusiasm, and -occasionally- even in tune. All tastes were catered for, with particular highlights including a life affirming group rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody and a somewhat poignant version of checks notes Tubthumping.

After two hours (!) of singing, it was time for a little boogie and GGHaringey's Latoya led the way to the dancefloor where the DJ indulged our now dwindling group with a few Latino-flavoured tunes. Magic stuff.

With thanks to John, Jack and everyone else who have revived the monthly socials and to everyone who came last night to help GGHaringey do our bit.

Next month's fun is taking place in Paddington - details here!