From six corners of Waltham forest we made our way to Leyton Parish Church (also confusingly called St Mary's ( armed with our garden gloves and energy in abundance to cover a path with fresh woodchip that the church had sourced for free from the local council. Mel and James (I hope that's his name) provided tea and tools (tea before task? We will definitely be back!!) and then we set to. Some loaded the wheelbarrows, some raced it up the path and deposited it some raked it evenly along the path. We amused ourselves with tongue twisters like 'how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood' By happy chance the daylight faded to evening just as we finished and we all disappeared into the night basking in a GoodGym glow of another task well done.

Such a lovely evening for a jog and clearing of the graves;)!

Arrival and The Hill of Hell As usual most of us met at the lovely Greenleaf Rd church, was great to see last minute sign-ups! Once we got everyone we went through a warm up of jumping jacks, high knees, arm rotations and dynamic lower body stretches. As usual we took off a bit faster so I will definitely need to remember to slow everyone down to ease into it:) We did a short route through forest road to The Hill of Hell otherwise known as Hurst Road - it ain't pleasant but I think everyone secretly (very very deep inside) was proud of getting to the top and carrying lightly jogging, truly warmed up at this point! We arrived at the churchyard where lovely Tim met us and explained what we needed to do with all tools prepped and ready for us.

Foxxy troubles Whilst we were getting our briefing about the task we noticed a fox lying down very close around 2 meters away - it was a beautiful furry fella but he was not super afraid of us (always a sign of concern) and then started to limp away. It is a mating season for foxes so there's been a lot of fighting between males leading to these kind of injuries. I consulted a few nature experts and they advised that there's a likelihood of healing on its own within a few weeks so no need for Fox Rescue at this stage. Fingers crossed for Mr Foxxy, it was just so heartbreaking to see this little fella limping.

It was Grave! - getting the task done Once the foxy drama was put aside we got on with the job by cutting down brambles and clearing ivy off the gravestones. Lots of squatting and arm strengthening here! As usual on these sort of tasks we also talked about variety of topics but one in particular was wild garlic and whether we smelled it or was that the weed that was permeating the air from a nearby group no doubt!:) The presence of wild garlic usually indicates a site of ancient woodland and St Mary's churchyard certainly qualifies as such as well as the other place we help at St Peters. We were discussing all the different things you can make with this lovely plant but Rachel's shared recipe is the winner - wild garlic and cheddar scones.

Cycle Sisters & Brother visit It was great to get a thank you or two from passers-by appreciating us taking care of this community space. One group of passers-by were three cyclists that I recognised from my JoyRiders rides - these were the ladies from the Cycle Sisters - a fantastic organisation that encourages muslim women to cycle. They were accompanied by a Cycle Brother as well! We chatted for a bit explaining what we do and how GoodGym works and who knows we might convince them to come along to the session one day!:)

Cooling down whilst stretching down The task was over in no time, so we packed up, locked up and jogged back! This time we enjoyed going downhill, taking a shorter route back to the base where we had a good stretching session and a chat.

Great session everyone - well done for coming along and bringing your great energy to this group session!

Another great evening packing up clothes at Traid and a short but intense little fitness session Once again there was a lot to do but we jumped at it with gusto!

Drop it like it's hot There was a lot of acitivity so we spent a full hour taking off the clothes off the racks, sorting out shoes and packing away clothes such as skirts, tops and trousers. Talking of trousers...We are now very experienced with 'dropping our trousers' but considering this was only the second good deed for Sophia, she really excelled at it;):

Quick burst of energy After we finished with the task Rosie, Sophia and Natasha made their way home by running and walking - great active travel! In the meantime Rachel, Rosalind, Rebecca, Ramon (the Four RRRR:)) and Julia easily jogged to the Town Square for some pre-dinner fitness activities: - We did two sets of interval sprints - 5 minutes each. Doesn't sound like a lot but folks were feeling the burn! - We did some arm strength exercises in between the sprinting - those triceps are going to say hello tomorrow;) - We finished with a nice stretch down!

//COMING UP AND ADMINNY BITS// Whatsapp group: We have a local whatsapp group for last minute information, some gifs and banter:) If you're not in the group and would like to join please let me know!

Next group run: Don't forget to sign up for next week's session HERE.

Next social: We thought it would be nice to grab some food together and catch-up over a cocktail or a mocktail! Come along by signing up here.

What a session we had tonight! Lots of energy, banter and productivity! Whilst we had a couple of no-shows, we had some unexpected 'shows' so we ended up having a good group workout and had a very productive session at St Peter in the Forest churchyard!

//WELCOME AND WELCOME BACK//

It was great to welcome Michael to his first GoodGym session and what a start he had indeed, think this is our most productive goodgymmer!!!!

A warm welcome to Julius at his first Waltham Forest session (after having one session in Norwich before the you-know-what-happened). This was an epic first session with some serious strength display!

It was fantastic to see Charlie back after one year - looking forward to more sessions in 2022!

//OFF LIKE A ROCKET//

Well we were all very excited after our warm up, so we took off energetically and on reflection a little bit too fast, which we realized very soon and slowed down. Ray has joined us for the run to the church and led a walk&jog group of Rachel and Rosalind through his secret shortcut (the fact of which became clear once I ran back and didn't find them, but I knew Ray will get them there safely and on time:)).

Howling at the moon or howling with pain? What can we say - the almost full Woolf Moon has provided a fantastic guide for our run to the task so myself, Charlie and Ruby decided to howl at the moon (must be those good endorphines from running...). This, however, backfired as everyone ahead of us stopped and waited thinking we were shouting for them to stop or screaming out in pain face palm :)

//GETTING STUFF DONE AT ST PETER'S//

• A little bit about St Peter's in the Forest: St Peter's is a Church of England church but it's so much more than just that - it's a vital part of the Waltham Forest community providing space for forest school sessions, local history, biodiversity, heritage education and outdoor activities for families and people of all ages. The church and the community centre received National Lottery Heritage Fund and over 2020 underwent major restoration work which is why the church looks so great, however there's always a need to help in the churchyard!

• Mean lean shoveling machine Michael! One of our major tasks was to re-descover an overgrown path amongst the graves, weed it, clean it and cover it with a weed suppressant and gravel. Step forward Michael - the man is clearly very talented with a shovel so in no time, there was a cleared path with borders discovered under all that growth and wet leaves!!! I promised that next gardening task Michael can take it easy and be a photographer - it's definitely deserved!:) Once we all admired Michael's work and oohed and aahed, Rachel and Charlie got the brushes out and gave those borders a good scrub and masterfully put down a weed suppressant - thankfully we had just enough to cover most of the path!. In the meantime Saj and Michael covered the path with the gravel. Look at this beauty:

• The remembrance garden is finally DONE!!! Before Ray disappeared to work, he showed where the gravel bags are and Julius and Charlie grabbed the wheelbarrows and had a nice arm workout by bringing the rest of the bags from the opposite side of the churchyard and covering the rest of the path in the garden as well as for the new path.

• Julius's is a real Caesar! Once the gravel bags were all transported we were talking about bringing the pallet back to the shed so a group of us went to carry it only to see this one-man band who just went and did it! Well done Julius!

• Discovering a fallen down gravestone and clearing a lot of graves! Rosalind, Saj, Rachel, Rebecca and Ruby performed miracles with their trowels, spades and forks by clearing out the corner and ancient graves by the main path (and below our new one!) whilst wheelbarrowing weeds into one neat pile, which we hope we didn't leave in the wrong place! All the borders, outside and on top of graves were cleared, weeded and we discovered a nice border there as well. Epic effort this!

• Frightening Father Alex! Usually there’s no one at the church at this time so it must’ve been quite a shock to suddenly hear and see lots of people coming into the churchyard, grabbing forks and spades and hectically working around graves!!! We can only apologise to Father Alex, who came out to say hello and was very curious and nice about it all! We reassured him that we were not digging up anything we shouldn't do:) What can we say, it was an eventful night:)

//THAT'S A WRAP//

Once we ensured that all the tools were collected and safely put away into the shed and everything was tided up, we took a group photo (ok we took a few but only 2 turned out good:)) and made our way back in a leisurely fashion with a mix of jogging and walking. A few goodgymers were dropping off to make it back home so four of us made it to the base where we did a nice little stretch down to finish an energetic and productive session! Great to see everyone - well done for your energy and effort tonight!