10 very very hot Goodgymmers ran all around Wood Green helping the community keep their very thirsty trees hydrated during this hot spell.

Kudos Corner

Super Rob joined us for his maiden Goodgym run and he took like a fish to water. He didn't bat an eyelid at the rather cheeky behaviour of some of our Goodgymmers, and he didn't complain even once about the running - unlike some of our more regular Goodgymmers :) Welcome, Rob and hope to see you again soon.

Special mention for Julie who topped the running board overall for the month of July for the whole of Goodgym (bravo) and for Charlie whose amazing pun was cruelly stolen from Strava and landed as the title of the next section (thanks!)

Anything Is Popsicle

The sun is shining

The weather is sweet, yeah

Makes you want to move your dancing feet now

To the rescue, here we are/ Want you to know, y'all, can you understand?

To the rescue, here we are indeed as our Goodgymmers descended upon the Noel Park Estate in Wood Green to help water some very thirsty community gardens.

We met at Blue House Yard where the Cool New Kid Rob was already waiting for us. Gramps haphazardly made his way through a few welcomes and health and safety checks once everyone arrived and before you knew it, we were on our way to our first pit stop: Moselle Meadow. We ran there the long way - much to Alex's consternation as she was introduced to Gramps' infamous distance-keeping efforts - and after a 2k-ish run as advertised (what's an extra half K between friends, eh) we found ourselves using watering cans, plant pots, and buckets to water the grounds of the Meadow as well as a neighbouring water-through-turned-community planter by Chapmans Green.

On we ran to our next stop, armed with watering cans and plenty of chat. Highlights included Neil's James Bondesque tales of adventure driving power boats through icy Scandinavian waters, and Niamh merrily shouting stuff about emissions. Once at Russell Park, our Goodgymmers broke into two groups: some litterpicked the area surrounding the Children's Centre in Russell Park and the other team got on with the job of watering the community planters in the park. By this stage we were all a bit hot under the collar so Gramps rewarded everyone with some popsicles he had stashed away earlier in the day and everyone cooled down nicely. Everyone but Sam, who came back after her holiday full of beans and did not stop even for a sec. A litter picking machine.

A little bit cooler, we ran to our last stop of the evening: the newly-created Parklet on Gladstone Avenue. A member of the community was already watering the planters at the parklet so some of us joined her while the rest played with some children and met some puppies.

Once we were satisfied our job was done, some of us decided we needed some rehydrating ourselves and staggered our way to the pub for some beverages. Not a bad way to spend a warm, summer evening if you ask me.

Don't believe me? join us next week and find out.

9 goodgymmers ran to this wonderful community garden to do their good weed for the day.

I know y the goodgymmer sings (aka Kudos corner)

You wouldn't know it because she really didn't really want to sing it from the rooftops, not even a little bit, but our very own rockstar Nurjehan completed her parkrun alphabet challenge last Saturday when she tackled York parkrun. That was a patient wait - bravo! <3

Trowel and Error

Just before we were to attend the task last night, we found out the master weeder who volunteers at Moselle Meadow couldn't meet us last night so it fell to good ol' Gramps to pick what needed to be weeded.

Undeterred, we did some hard core weeding all around the flower beds of this lovely community space.

A former abandoned site that was a fly tip haven until last year, Moselle Meadow is now a beautiful community garden - created and maintained by the local community spearheaded by Noel Park Big Local - and our goodgymmers certainly felt the love for it last night.

By around 8pm, we had wrapped up the task and our selfies, and we all set off homeward-bound feeling a little bit more zen.

Boom