4 runners laid the foundations for an overflow pond.

With Gramps away, another robin came to watch over us working this week. I'm begining to think he's training them.

It was a solid work out this week. Relocating heavy clay from the foundations of the building work at Wolves Lane. Into wheel barrows, over rough terrain, round a little hill, down, and heave it up to form the wall of a new pond!

With half the crew not signed up to any races this year, there was much celebration for Julie's tripple marathon weekend, bringing her total up to 150!

8 lycanthropic Goodgymmers huffed, puffed, and blew the house down at Wolves Lane.

Spinning Straw Into Gold

Elki from Wolves Lane welcomed us with open arms, loads of cutting utensils, and a mountainous 1.5 tonne pile of hay that needed processing so it could go into the compost piles.

Proving that it would be easier to find the proverbial needle in a haystack than it would be to dampen the spirit of our Goodgymmers, they attacked the pile with gusto and purpose.

Latoya, fashionably late due to Gramps/Arsenal/Newly-imposed tariffs on timekeeping/literally anything else she could blame but herself, regaled us with stories of her exploits over her many years of Goodgym missions after on-field debutant Mark enquired about the ins and outs of this facet of Goodgym. Incredibly enough, stories about flying nappies, accidental pond-dipping, and "kidnapping" by the senior community didn't discourage Mark but in fact it seemed to motivate him to try missions - a natural fit to the GG Haringey fam, our Mark. Boom.

After about an hour of shenanigans, we had managed to make our way through about two thirds of the haystack, much to Elki's surprise and delight, and it was time to go off in search of beverages. But not before a quick pitstop to say hello to the terrapins. It wouldn't be a visit to Wolves Lane without a terrapin sighting.

#LongChip

Shout to Dave and Sarah for tonight's pun action.

Join us next week: Monday at Traid for fashionable shenanigans, and Wednesday at Meadow Orchard followed by a social. Come!

5 Goodgymmers proved they're not afraid of the dark as they lend a hand at Woodside Park as the Friends groups gets on with the work of rehabilitating the tree beds at the Braille Garden area of the park

The One Where Ed turned up and saw what the task was and went 'I'll just go home for 2 mins to pick up my headtorch' and disappeared for exactly an eternity. Poor Paul was worried sick - ed. it might have been more like 4 minutes

Armed with just a couple torches since Gramps big light has decided to do one and head on the long journey to Big Light Heaven, our Goodgymmers were tasked with clearing an outbreak of the always-lovely but over-vigorous green alkanet from the grounds of the Braille Garden area of Woodside Park.

Michael from the Friends group kindly gave us a brief historical overview of the garden, created after WWII as a place where blind locals could come and partake in a bit of gardening, with aromatic planting and braille sign making the task easier for them. Time inexorably marches on, however, and with time the gardens fell into disrepair, becoming a couple of overgrown tree beds. Enter the Friends group!

With a small grant in their pocket and the support and expertise of the Wood Green's Postcode Gardener scheme, the Friends group is working to reinstate some of the beauty and accessibility to the gardens. In other words, they know how to pull at our sentimental Goodgym heart strings...

Even though it was a bit dark, our Goodgymmers pulled the deep-rooted alkanets from one of the beds ahead of a planting session this weekend. Slowly but surely, we got rid of a few wheelbarrowfuls worth of alkanets and weeds.

We also did a gentle litter pick and got rid of a number of empty beer cans, clear evidence that the gardens are still very much in use if only for a different sensory experience.

Come 8pm, Gramps called an end to the procedure but not before some selfies and and assurance to lovely Michael that we will be back whenever the Friends needs a hand. He then tried to poach one of our runners but I'm not sore Gotta respect the hustle!

Join us on Sunday for birdwatching, and next week for more GG shenanigans in the park

6 wonderful Goodgymers kicked off a whole new year of GG action by helping the Friends of the Meadow Orchard go hunting for last season's fallen christmas trees to be converted into hugel beds.

Huge-l News If True

And so it begins. 2025 ushered its new GG Haringey year with the threat of inclement snow but that wasn't going to stop our brave Goodgymmers. Armed with puffa jackets and more layers than we could count, our Goodgymmers ran, cycled, and walked to the task in the West of the borough where the good folk from the Meadow Orchard had pressed the Big Red Button labelled Goodgym: Press For Help and we heeded the call.

It wasn't the promise of hot spiced cider and wassailing that brought our team out, I swear, but it certainly helped as the first dusting of snow began falling during our run. Thankfully, almost as soon as the dusting began it had stopped and the evening ended up being quite mild, if only in comparison to the weather elsewhere in the country.

Our team was guided to a lovely long and wide avenue of fancy houses where we were handed a list with house numbers with trees to collect. We wasted no time in pairing up and before you knew it, our teams were buzzing all over the road picking up huge trees and collecting them on the green at the bottom of the avenue. Once we were satisfied all the trees on the list had been collected, we picked them up and carried them the kilometre or so back to the Meadow Orchard, destined to become hugel beds in the not-so-distant future.

Once at the Orchard, Alan from the Friends group, always a man of his word, proceeded to entertain us with fire-making and hot cider. What a better way to kick off GG 2025.

Super Sarah will be leading the session next week, as we fill up holes at Lordship Rec to ensure the safety of our local parkruns and junior parkruns. Come!

(*) you had to be there