Five Goodgymmers gathered at the Phoenix for the short run to the Fuel Land Allotments, where Brigid and Les were already at work on the Finchley Charities' community allotment.

But before we got started, it was time for a takeover! Beattie and Rachel brilliantly stepped up to lead our warm up as part of This Girl Can's Move for 10 campaign. Our 10min warm up started with some gentle jogging on the spot, before getting into: * lifting knees and kicking backsides * jump twisting * hip joint warm ups * sprinting on the spot * imaginary stick breaking over the knee * and skipping up the side road then back down

As we did so, they gave us two icebreaker questions for the evening because women have to work twice as hard to succeed! No arguments there! Our questions were: * When was the last time you had a girl boss? * When have you experienced nature 'in tooth and claw' (i.e. the scary side)?

With our brief answers in mind and our muscles warmed up, we set off for the Fuel Lands with Sheela back marking, hearing about all the great bosses we'd had and that time I hit a hornet with a skewer, or the two mice Rachel found nesting in her boot over the weekend (and which Beattie had mysteriously passed to her to put on without disturbing them moments before, but she definitely didn't put them in there herself).

At the gates, Sheela let us in and we made our way to the community plot, where Brigid and Les set us on a number of tasks. First there were some logs to carry. Then we tried and failed - possibly fortunately, for health and safety reasons - to lift the lid on a well cover, to see what was going on. Beattie managed to spy through a corner what was going on - mud, no water, not a lot of excitement - which was sufficient to tell us to delve no deeper.

Sheela and I then helped sow wildflowers as part of the Finchley Pollinators' plans to sow 600 mini-meadows this year. Richard helped Les move some of the paving slabs we'd dug up earlier in the summer, then was joined by the others to help move a large, empty water tank to nearer some beds. Brigid was busy chopping up comfrey leaves to fertilise trenchesa around a bed, and told us the history of the variety - bocking 14, which is a sterile variety developed in the village of Bocking, Essex. It's apparently as nutritious as manure for the soil.

With the daylight fading, we started tidying away tools, but at the shed at the back we still had a pile of sticks they'd dragged from the side by the fence, which needed sorting. So, with 10 minutes left of the session, we decided to snap all the smaller branches off and put them in the wheelbarrows, so the larger branches would be easier to move around.

No promises, but the sticks may end up fuel for a barrow fire in late October, when we go back (with headtorches) for one last session.

(Also! I can't remember any of the puns people were coming up with for the report - something about wells? Post in the comments if you remember!)

This week’s GoodGym Barnet group run was a little different as we started at The Bull Theatre in High Barnet, where we’d previously helped out with some painting.

The Bull is another of Barnet’s little community jewels. The building has a history stretching back centuries and became the Old Bull Arts Centre in 1975. Today it is home to the Susi Earnshaw Theatre School as well as being used by the wider community. The school has helped develop an impressive list of young performers, including Amy Winehouse, Jess Glynne, Daniel Roche from Outnumbered and West End performers Alexia Khadime and Aimie Atkinson. Amy Winehouse and Alexandra Burke are also among those who have performed at the Bull itself. High Barnet Fair was once one of the biggest livestock fairs in England, attracting huge crowds, with horse racing, boxing, drinking and entertainment. The fair became so famous in London that “Barnet Fair” became Cockney rhyming slang for hair .. hence your Barnet.

Then it was time for some GoodGym action. We set about pulling weeds and clearing the outside area, and with plenty of hands we got through the job in quick time ... leaving enough daylight ( but not much ) for a run.

We headed across the High Street and through Old Court House Recreation Ground, enjoying one of those useful traffic-free routes that makes you realise how much there is to discover locally. The park itself was once pasture with stables and a brewery before becoming public open space in the 1920s. From there the route continues down a leafy alley beside the tennis courts, across Mays Lane and eventually through the fields to Dollis Brook.

We caught a lovely glowing sky from the last of the sunset before heading back uphill to the Bull, finishing with a warm-down and stretch inside the theatre.

A good task, a bit of running, some local history and another important community venue supported. We look forward to helping the Bull again later in the year.

The Phoenix Cinema had asked GoodGym Barnet to distribute leaflets for this film in an effort to support a community action screening and Q&A session. We decided to see the film ourselves.

I’ll admit I was initially a little cynical about Super Nature, but having seen it at the weekend,. I think I now understand much better what director Ed Sayers was trying to do.

The whole film is shot on Super 8, the old home-movie format many of us associate with the 1970s and 80s. A cartridge gives you only around two or three minutes of film and there is no recorded sound, so unlike a phone or digital camera you simply can’t keep filming everything. Sayers brought together more than 40 contributors across 25 countries to capture the natural world in this deliberately restricted way.

And perhaps the restriction is the point.

When you only have a tiny amount of film, you have to choose your moment. You spend more time actually looking, waiting and being present in the environment. It reminded me of taking photographs with film: every picture cost something, so you thought about it rather than firing off dozens of shots.

There is also something nostalgic about the grainy Super 8 image. Even the director said at the Q&A that this seems to affect younger people who never actually grew up with the format. It somehow makes what you are watching feel like a memory — and that becomes rather powerful when the subject is a natural world we are in danger of losing.

The film does show some very direct environmental threats: plastic in the oceans, threatened ecosystems and the last northern white rhinos. But I came away thinking there was another, less obvious message as well.

We live in a world where we constantly consume information — photographs, videos, messages, news and data. We record more and more but perhaps sometimes experience less. That endless appetite for more is not completely separate from the wider consumerism which is literally consuming the natural world.

I would have liked more time at the Q&A to explore the community side of this. Perhaps part of reconnecting with nature isn’t travelling across the world to see something spectacular. It is stopping, looking and becoming involved with what is around us — our parks, woods, gardens, birds, insects and local wildlife.

That links very nicely with GoodGym. We can actually do something: look after a local nature reserve, plant and care for trees, clear litter, support community organisations and simply become more aware of the natural world on our doorstep.

Maybe the lesson of Super Nature is quite simple: consume a little less, look a little longer — and get involved.

Gardening for the Record Books

Last night’s group run took us to Shepherds Hill Gardens, where we helped Pat and the Friends group look after this lovely local park.

We gathered outside the Phoenix Cinema for our warm-up and chatted about our favourite Guinness World Records. We started with Ethel Caterham, who recently became the first British person to reach 117 and is currently the world’s oldest living person. She still has a little way to go to match France’s Jeanne Calment, who lived to an extraordinary 122 years and 164 days.

Other records included Usain Bolt’s remarkable 100m time of 9.58 seconds. Richard, who has a good head for UK temperatures, correctly recalled our highest recorded temperature: 40.3°C at Coningsby in Lincolnshire in July 2022.

It was all very topical as GoodGym Barnet set off in slightly above-average temperatures at a significantly faster pace than usual with the vein hope we might all live a little longer!

We took a slight detour through Highgate Wood, making the most of one of our last opportunities this year to run through it before the earlier seasonal closing times. It was beautiful running beneath the cool, green shade of the trees.

We kept up a good pace and eventually reached Shepherds Hill Gardens, where we met fellow GoodGym members Nicole, Fanny Sonya and Lucy. Together, we assisted Pat by clearing around the benches, cutting back ivy and tidying an area further down the park where somebody had started a fire.

As usual, Pat rewarded everyone with some lovely refreshments: fresh mint tea, fizzy water, fruit juice and delectable chocolate biscuits.

After a welcome drink and chat, it was time to head back through the warm evening.

Thanks to everyone who came along, enjoyed a good run and helped care for this valuable community green space.