Thorn to Be Wild

15 GoodGymers made their way to help the St Leonard's Priory Park in Tower Hamlets.

: Monday, 9th of January 2023
: Led by Laura Williams

A good-sized group of us met in the park this evening to run through a short workout.

Thanks to the addition of planters and park benches, we were able to complete a total body workout. The team were amazing, whizzing through side planks, tricep dips and incline push-ups, along with a full repertoire of lower body exercises including the Bulgarian split squat and The Perfect Lunge.

At 7pm, we made our way over to the tool shed to meet Larry, our task owner for the night, who's heading up the Priory Park Project. Larry talked us through tonight's task, a large bramble-clearing, in the far side of the park.

Wheeling tools and carrying gardening bags and lights, we headed over to the end of the park, and divided into small teams, tackling small areas, densely populated with brambles, weeds and leaves.

An hour passed quickly, and even after 20 minutes, the ground was looking clearer. As the brambles and other greenery were cleared away, the magnificent churchyard tombs became visible. Larry gave us a little background on the position of these tombs and their history, in this picturesque churchyard park.

It was quite the Monday night workout, with both upper and lower body being used to tackle stubborn bramble roots; step counts boosted as we navigated our way around the area, and carried heavy bags back to the exit.

At shortly before 8, Fiona took our 'after' pics (having brilliantly thought of taking our 'before' ones), and we gathered with one last bag of brambles for tonight's final pic.

Big shout-outs tonight:

To Áine, for being a brilliant lighting technician and for tonight's fab pun.
To Fiona, for fab before and after pics.
To Tom and Jessica, whose first GoodGym session it was!
To Gualtiero, whose first Tower Hamlets task this was!
And to our Joel, who's heading South of the river for a while, but who we hope to see very, very soon.