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.

Today we headed to the Bull Theatre in High Barnet to help Susi and Dave get this important local theatre and performing arts centre ready for its next season.

With its theatre and two dance studios, the Bull provides a great space for young people and the wider community to get involved in drama, dance and music. We got stuck into some much-needed decorating. painting walls, cleaning them down as well as painting the floor.

There’s plenty of history here too. The site dates back centuries and has been a pub, magistrates court and, from 1975, the Old Bull Arts Centre. When its future became uncertain in the early 2000s, the local community helped save it, and today it continues as an independent charity and home for performing arts in Barnet. It has even seen the likes of Amy Winehouse and Alexandra Burke perform here in their earlier days.

It’s exactly the sort of community facility that is worth supporting giving young people opportunities to build confidence, learn skills, perform and meet others.

And, of course, this was GoodGym so we had to get there actively! Jack and I cycled, Subham ran some of the way, while the rest of the team made their way by public transport.

Thanks to Susi and Dave for welcoming us. Hopefully this is the start of us doing a bit more to help keep this historic little theatre vibrant and serving the Barnet community for many years to come.

We had a great turn out for our return to the Finchley Charities' community plot at the Fuel Land Allotments. Ten Goodgymmers gathered, half at the Phoenix for the warm up run and half at the allotment gates for the task. We were met by the lovely plot coordinators Brigid and Les, as well as Carmel from the Finchley Charities. (A brief shout out to www.goodgym.org/v3/profile/sheela-guttula, who couldn't make it due to an injury - get well soon!)

With many hands, we made light work of the tasks: carrying logs from the back of the plot to the front to extend the palisade, weeding bindweed, horseradish and oak seedlings and watering the vegetables. We also admired the wonderfully weird icon of Jesus the group found by chance painted on an old slab resting by the shed, as well as a lovely tiger moth spotted on a fence near the plot.

It was great to see Jamie out again for his third session - hoping work commitments will allow for lots of future sessions. And thank you to Richard for suggesting the pizza and popcorn social afterwards for some of us.

Five goodgymers went along to help the local community with citizen science activities at the Tiny Forests near Mutton Brook. There are four Tiny Forests there now, and there is a lot of work to do: litter picking, tree measuring, and various other experiments.

London Climate Action Week could not have come at a more appropriate time, with the whole of Europe baking under record high temperatures. And tree cover in urban areas is a hot topic, as we all battle to keep our cities livable in this new normal.

So it was great to see local citizens caring for their local forest cover: 2,400 trees planted by the community since 2022, with the help of environmental NGO Earthwatch.

Tiny Forests are densely packed areas of tree cover, planted using the now-famous Miyawaki method . The tree cover is all native species and they are ideal for urban environments, where space is at a premium.

We all got busy with different tasks, while enjoying the sight of butterflies and bees coming to feast on the flowers growing alongside the trees.

Looking forward to the next event at the Tiny Forests!