Good(Gym) to be back for our good seed of the day!

It had been 8 months(!!) since GoodGym H&F last helped out Donatella and the Friends of Brook Green. It wasn't our normal Tuesday GoodGym H&F slot, but in these unprecedented times we've gotten used to change! We'd visited Donatella and the Friends of Brook Green on a number of occasions to tackle the infamous mud mounds and were making fantastic progress at transforming the area until lockdown 2.0 rudely stopped us in our tracks!

But today, on a lovely sunny, but deceptively chilly Good Friday, H&F GoodGym'ers had dug out their red and black GoodGym tees and were ready to tackle a mud mound once again. The aim was to transform the large mud mound (filled with rubble and the old GoodGym staple, weeds) into a glorious wildflower meadow ready for summer.

Donatella led us over to the mound and explained the jobs at hand:

1. Prepare the soil: reshape the mound area by the metal fence, remove the weeds and rubble, decompact the soil
2. Seed the wildflower mix
3. Install wood poles and rope edges to protect the seeds

Getting enTRENCHed!

Just like old times we all gloved up and selected our tool of choice. Something else that hadn't changed was that Cookie had his favourite axe in hand and was well away mining the mound with help from Dr Tom. Cookie and Dr Tom had been tasked with creating a trench the other side of the railings to perturb people from bolting the railings and crushing the wildflower meadow. Taking turns with the axe and the spade, Cookie and Dr Tom dug in deep and spade an axecellent trench. An unprecedented event for GoodGym H&F!

You'll never fork alone

Jess and Beth² all opted for forks to tackle the mound which they quickly discovered was a little shall we say 'rock solid'. A good upper body workout was definitely on the cards! 💪. Jess and 'smaller' Beth slowly chipped away at the mound, first removing the weeds before loosening the top soil. 'Taller' Beth had managed to loosen the soil a little too well and had seemingly plotted her escape to the land down under...forking hell!

In the distance, we saw the blur of 2 red GoodGym tees heading towards us....it was Lucy, on her 2nd good deed of the day, and Ben primed and ready to add further muscle to the mound!

Lucy and Ben both decided to join 'fork club' and quickly began helping us loosen and turn over the soil. Loads of weeds and rubble were dug up and piled up at the bottom of the mound, along with the odd relic, such as a rusty old 10 pence piece, sadly nothing that Tony Robinson and the Time Team crew would've been interested in preserving!

Sowing the mounds of change

In just over an hour, the large mound had one perfectly formed trench to one side and half had been reshaped and weeded, this half was now ready to be seeded! Lucy was first up to mix the wildflower seeds with sand and gently sprinkle the seedy mixture evenly across the mound.

Lucy's guilty measure

Lucy had become armed with a tape measure, and now that the mound was equally divided up it the next logical thing to measure was, well GoodGym'ers of course! First up it was height measurements, then arm length, then thigh circumstance, we all decided it was a measure of our patience too far when bum was mentioned! However, it was very inch-resting to discover that 'taller' Beth had incredibly long arms and that Jess was 'above average height at this task'. The lengths Lucy goes to to entertain us all!

Seed you later!

Cookie and Dr Tom were next up to sow the wildflower seeds on the mound and they methodically made their way from one side of the mound to the other, ensuring no large spots on the mound were missed. All the seeds were now sowed and we now needed to create a barrier to protect our seeded mound. With the poles and tape up the final job was to put up the "keep off" signs. Lucy and 'smaller' Beth devised a saw-like cutting technique of the parcel tape using keys while Ben, 'taller' Beth and Cookie attached them to the tape. Team work makes the dream work!

An EGGcellent way to finish!

Donatella thanked us all for our help and provided us with little chocolate easter eggs. This acted as a nice starter for 'taller' Beth's deliciously gooey homemade chocolate orange brownies in celebration of her completing 50 good deeds! Well done Beth on your 50th and 51st good deed! 🙌🥳 And thank you for the brownies!