FROGG and Road

Another wonderful starter session in Islington today.

Today's task was helping out FROGG and tidying up an area on the road, that we started in January. And we were quite happy to hop to it.

We started off with 23 of us sat nice and warm inside Whittington Park Community Association for the briefing. Lots of details about what GoodGym is and what we do. Ribbiting stuff!

It was a bit nippy outside so we leapfrogged over the fence to the grass and got stuck into a quick game of our favourite: Domes and Dishes. After round one, Domes were slightly ahead, so we had another quick 30 second bash where all hell broke loose and as usual everybody started cheating. But, at least we were a touch warmer. A few dynamic stretches and a bit of shadow boxing and we were ready to go.

So we (frog) legged it over to Grenville Road Gardens where we were met by Jessica, Sarah and other friends.

We split up into three groups. One digging and weeding within the garden, another turning soil and uprooting stuff (roots, mainly) on our patch on the road and another building some willow arches.

There was chatter, there was popcorn and juice, there was a real struggle to get some of the more stubborn roots up and there was loads of fun.

We did of course stop for the classic Islington biscuit break. Thank you to Beth for supplying. These were toad-ally delicious. There were also shop-bought digestives on offer, but interestingly only Beth chose one of these, turning down her own biscuits. Does she know something we don't?

Kinga was also on hand, interviewing folk for the soon-to-be-released Social Good Show.

We also stopped to discuss today's debate topic: what is the greatest music album ever.

Most popular were:

Spotify, not really an album, but there was a bit of agreement that the album is an outdated concept. Ellen informs us that Spotify's "random" is not really random)

The classic Nevermind, by Nirvana

Other interesting suggestions:

• XX (not INXS) from Sajid
• Fleetwood Mac's Rumours
• Something from New Kids On The Block (seriously?)
• All the Rolling Stones albums
• The Holy Bible, by the Manic Street Preachers
• Eric Clapton Unplugged (Sarah's Dad's choice apparently)
• Kings Of Leon (the latest one - Mechanical Bull?) (which was not illegally downloaded by Katie)
• Aimee chose Something by Mogwai (not the ones in Gremlins)
• Bloc Party: Silent Alarm
• Velvet Underground: Loaded
• Dylan's Blood On The Tracks
• Third by Soft Machine
• Michael Jackson's Bad
• Disintegration by The Cure
• The Staves: Blood I Bled
• The Offspring's Splash

To be honest, I was expecting a few more hip-hop suggestions. Apologies if I frog-ot to include any. Email them over and I'll stick them in.

As a special treat, we'll be playing plenty of Nirvana this Monday (via Spotify) when we return to Whittington Park to get stuck into some wooden chair refurbishment.

You will come to this! You will come to this!

After 45 minutes we had done absolutely loads (toads?), so climbed up a giant rock for a group photo, said our thank yous to our hosts and made our way back. I think we spawned a wonderful relationship with them.

But the day was not finished yet, just enough time for some relay action. We split into 7 groups of three and had a go at a continuous relay, with each of us running frog legs (yes, I know we've already had that, but there are not that many frog puns. although you'd think there would be) of about 25 metres each. The first minute was very impressive, but it was time to dissect the technique.

First we used the classic "helium balloon" trick to get ourselves walking nice and tall, then did another minute, but this time with vastly-improved posture. The only problem now was that we'd slowed down a little.

Time for the day's second technical point. Another Islington favourite: DRIVING ARMS! Remember, do something with your arms and your legs will follow. The final minute was very fast and everybody was croaked by the end of it.

So, a quick stretch to cool down and we were done.

A pleasure to meet you all today. That's the end of the report. It was fun to write, I just hope everybody ribbit all the way through.

Oh dear

Simon

P.S.