5 Goodgymers tested their ‘impervious to the cold’ credentials with a chilly night of path laying at the Haringey Learning Partnership tonight.

Insane In the Membrane!

Dave, Charlie, and Gramps met at GGH HQ for the evening run in what can only be charitably described as ducking freezing conditions while Julie and Nurjehan represented the walking crew proudly by wearing varying levels of warm clothing. You could be tempted to make some sort of sweeping generalisation about the different levels of sensibleness between the sexes from that statement but don’t give in to the temptation! This isn’t the 1970s anymore, you know? Come on, mate.

Anyway, once at HLP, Luke from GrowN22 welcomed us with a plethora of tools and a fun task. The folk at HLP have asked Luke and crew to look after some planters that have not seen a lot of love in many a moon so the GrowN22 lot pressed the big red button labelled 'GET GOODGYM OVER HERE RIGHT NOW' and we heeded the call, of course.

First order of the day: sorting out the pathway around the planters. Our Goodgymmers began by clearing some leftover wood and weeding the concrete before laying down a weed-control membrane. Never ones to say no to a good pegging session, our Goodgymmers had malleted a number of clips onto the ground, fixing the membrane in place.

Next the gravel. Slight hiccup at this stage. I don't know if I've already mentioned this but it was ducking freezing, so much so that the big piles of gravel had frozen solid into one single piece and it was harder to break down that when the Avengers assembled, or summat. I don't know. I'm not a DC guy ;)

Anyway, although at first it seemed like game over for the gravel-laying part of our task, Smashing Dave smashed his way through the pile with a mallet and before you knew it, our Goodgymmers were wheelbarrowing the gravel into site.

Just before 8pm, we had managed to secure all the membrane we had on site and covered it with as much gravel as our hearts desired. A lovely evening of rock hard smashing and level peggings. Boom

Selfies here, warming hugs there and off we all went into the night in search of hot toddies and blankets.