Holland Park Estate by Tom

Last night I led a band of Goodgymers down to Holland Park estate to do some gardening. I harnessed my inner elephant and contrary to my own belief didn’t forget the route there and managed to lead the group 1.2 miles to our destination, phew. Once there we met the lovely Ameena who split us into two groups. The first team headed onto the estate to do a plethora of tasks, highlights included clearing fences of over grown plants, cutting back said plants, shaking seeds over the soil to sow them and also doing some weeding whilst avoiding to uproot the established kiwi tree, sounded like Holland Park didn’t know what hit it.

Team two had a more concentrated task of tidying up a resident’s front lawn. Ameena loaded us up with tools and showed us the patch, we basically needed to turn a front lawn that had been overrun by weeds into turned over soil and plant some bulbs ready for the summer. We got down to business and filled around 1 and a half green sacs of weeds and planted some very evenly spread bulbs at the front and sides of the garden. From being a sea of green weeds we transformed it in 40 minutes into a nicely raked-over soil lawn. As we were low on gloves a special mention needs to go to Steve’s impromptu use of his sleeve as a glove, this ensured no weed was left on the patch. Once done we admired our handy work and then headed back to base camp. Another cracking Tuesday night, good work guys.

Portico Gallery by James (in the style of Danny Dyer)

So i erd this goodgym lot, they got their eads screwed on right pwoppa. Down sarf at the portico they was, twice in a fortnight.

Alex and George, they was off like the dogs at the tracks. 1 minute in, they was off, probably chasing rabbits, know what i mean.

But then we all gets there and you see my geezer John right, e's got a lot of metal, dunno where he gets it from but i dont ask and he don't tell know what i mean. He says he needs it shiftin, and us, well were a helpful lot, john does well by us so we do well by im.

We had to be heading off, so off we was back, down the hill to Brixton. If you dont think this goodgym lot is decent then you're a wrong un

Just because the task cancelled, doesn’t mean we stop… oh no,.. this week we helped ourselves… by getting fitter and stronger and spreading the Goodgym name across Lambeth to recruit more members for the New Year.

Inspired by the speed of you all, Maya has written a lovely little account in the style of Usain Bolt… and if you want to sponsor her then you can do so here http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/StHildasEast

"Heer me naw. Looads a people be commin to da run in Papa park, Brixtan. Big up da team for cummin along on a daak coold wintas evenin. Both da task we was gunna do be cancelled last minate, so my main gal Rebecca be puttin us tru our paces and takin us to da common in Claphaam. 1 mile we ran der, each wid a flyer spreddin good wurds about da good gym cru. Owa job was to try convince udda runners to join us on owa weekly tasks. Wen we got to da ponds in da common we den had to do a sprint man, yeh, around da pond wid d geese n everyting. Rebecca timed us and den we tried to beat owa time da second time around. It wos tuff ya kno? Dis was followed by circuits in da park wich reminded me of da good ol days wen we did dees everi week man. Owa run back was pritty smood, and to mek everyting betta we den had tree cakes to gorge on innit. Testee! As if dis wernt enaf, sum of da cru wen down to da rhum baa to warm owa cockales afta. A wandaful time was ad by all".