A grand welcome to first timers Caroline, Caesar and Jason this evening. Double cheers for doing their first good deeds on such a wet evening

So, despite the drizzle, there was good to do in Islington. And as is often the case we spread ourselves across the borough with double deeding.

Caroline "Faster" Townsend led a group of ten over to a brand new task: Single Homeless Project, a charity that supports homeless and vulnerable people in London. Caroline explains what went down:

A really wet one tonight. 10 of us ran to a fantastic new task at the Single Homeless Project . We did an extra lap around Highbury Fields as well so we were proper warmed up when we arrived. At the task we split into groups and did a lot of gardening. We did a nice run back via Clissold Park on the way back. We continued to get wet but we found it refreshing... its been so hot recently. We discussed the debate and a few preferred red grapes and others preferred green.

Caroline

The other crew whizzed up to Caxton House Community Centre. Our job was to sand down some new benches in the front garden for painting. We worked our way down from brush, to coarse sandpaper, to less-coarse sandpaper, to fine sandpaper - being very sure to go with the grain, not against the grain - and left them ready for a nice coat of paint next week (rain, rain, stay away). We also did some weeding in the garden. There definitely isn't a lack of weeds around. To pat ourselves on the back we munched away on one of Steve L's Oreos brought all the way back from Portland. Delicious.

With a good thirty minutes in the bag we sped off via Emirates for a few "slope reps" (they're like hill reps, but they don't sound as hard), before blasting up a couple of real hills and getting back to the pool.

Time to vote. What's the best type of grape: green or red? Red won, which means that Steve C was on the losing debate side once again. Are they rigged? Find out next week

Another great night of doing good and getting fit. Well done all,
Simon

P.S. *Tip o' the GoodGym cap to Richard F for pun report title

P.P.S Don't forget there are drinks on Thursday.

Two tasks on this lovely summer evening in Islington.

One group popped up to Whittington Park. Aidan describes:

We arrived at Whittington Park after our longer run down Holloway Road. Our fortnightly task awaited us with Martin ready with bin bags and gloves.

The majority of us tackled the 1 o'clock club's garden as we need to keep up our good work of maintaining a weed and nettle free garden for the kids who use the club.

There was also the task of de-weeding the entrance of the main building, keeping it looking great for everyone!

After working hard for twenty minutes what better way to treat ourselves than with some circuits. Everyone got a chance to pick an exercise for everyone else to do whilst they went on a short lap of the field. Although some of the ladies did get a bit lost along the way! We had all the classics; press ups, sit-ups, planking and two types of squatting for good measure. All before rejoining Holloway Road for our run back.

Aidan

The other group travelled to Barnsbury Community Centre. We've spent a lot of time over the last year helping create a wonderful garden in the disused space behind the centre and we're now just putting the finishing touches to the project for their grand launch on 25th August.

First job was to get gloves out the storage cabinet. Simple, right? Nope. A combination of stupid rain and then stupid heat meant the combination lock for the cabinet had seized up completely. Despite the best efforts of Caroline, Patrick and a pair of pliers it remained stuck. Not to worry: we'd just have to be extra careful.

We spent 25 minutes carrying old pallets and broken bits of wood round to the estate's waste disposal site, having a thoroughly good weed and watering plants. Nice work.

Following the task we played "Dice of Doom" with Simon's new giant foam dice: everybody had a chance to throw the dice and determine the activity that had to be performed for 15 seconds. There were alternate squat thrusts, running high knees, start jumps (LOTS of start jumps), sprints, dreaded burpees (boo) and the elusive jogging on the spot. We then played a game that Caroline made up. Nobody was quite sure what it was.

Back at the pool we had a free stretch, a biscuit and voted on the proper way to eat scones: jam then cream, cream then jam, or Claire's suggestion, butter, jam then cream (which is apparently the traditional Cornish way of doing things)? Jam then cream won by quite a large margin. Some people were disgusted at this - especially Steve - but the people have spoken.

If anybody wants to make scones for next week maybe we could put it to the test.

xxx,
Simon