The Orchard Project are starting another community orchard outside the lovely Friern Barnet Community Library, in partnership with Yvonne, their growing coordinator. As part of their volunteer engagement, they linked up with Lynne, who is coordinating growing outside St John's Church across the road, to plant two mini-meadows. So Subham and I walked intothe a lovely network of people dedicated to supporting nature and food in Barnet, including Shiri from the Finchley Pollinators, and a host of local residents supporting the initiative.

Subham and I got stuck in with tools, digging up turf for the first mini-meadow. Subham and I carried the turf over to a big tree on the green and deposited it on the bare soil around the base. We then gathered together with small handfuls of seeds to sprinkle on the patch, followed by a bit of consolidating (stepping on the seeds to stick them down so they don't blow away and have a better chance of rooting). We then bashed in stakes with a sledgehammer - including a swing or two by MP Catherine West! - and put string around to protect the patch, with a sign.

Then it was over the road to a long poor soil patch outside the church where nothing grows - perfect for wildflowers and meadows! We roughed the patch up with rakes and then sowed seeds and trampled a bit to round off. And for those that wanted it, there was a bit more engagement in the Library after, with apple juice, vegan apple cake, fruit tasting and chitchat.

A change of scenery this week as we headed to the historic Bull Theatre in High Barnet, rather than our usual Phoenix Cinema starting point. Always good to spread our wings a little!

We started with a chat from Carly about the upcoming High Barnet Christmas Fair, a great local tradition which GoodGym has been invited to support. If you’d like to get involved, you can sign up on the GoodGym website. https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/help-the-bull-theatre-at-barnet-christmas-fayre?legacy=true

Unfortunately, our usual contact Susi was unwell, which meant some of our planned tasks had to wait. But there was still plenty to do, with the team getting stuck into weeding the garden areas and pathways, accompanied by the usual GoodGym chatter.

With the gardening done, George led the runners out onto Hadley Common while I stayed behind for a chat with the theatre team. Apparently, there was a slight navigational hiccup, but Victoria R spotted the error and soon had everyone back on track!

A few special mentions this week. Subham who had already run over 8km just to get to the start. Fantastic effort! Patricia , out for her fifth GoodGym session, and Beattie, who has now clocked up an impressive 150 good deeds! Awesome stuff!

And a big thank you to Victoria, who has kindly offered to help promote our activities on Instagram using the GoodGym handle. Every bit of publicity helps spread the word!

After the usual stretches and a final chat, we headed off in our various directions, some running, some cycling and others taking the Tube.

Another enjoyable evening of exercise, community support and good company. Well done, everyone!

A few good gym members came online to do some yoga.

Yoga talk

Get rid of the Fuzz
Dr Gil Hedley explains in his online talk that optimal health and physical comfort depend on moving at the start of the day. While muscles rest overnight, layers of connective tissue and fluid—affectionately called ‘fuzz’—accumulate between them. The urge to stretch on waking is largely a release of this fuzzy buildup. Without movement and stretching, the layer thickens, leading to stiffness, chronically ‘tight’ muscles, and common aches and pains.

Another great start to the week with a short jog and some weight training. This time, the delivery was already there as I jogged up, so I got stuck in immediately, unloading: dips, bananas, oranges, cucumbers, tandoori yoghurt drinks, salads, milk, cream and lots more.

By the time Mohamed made it, the delivery was done and stuff away in the storage cupboards, so we had a quick chat about how it works and the training video he'll need to watch for heavy lifting if he makes it next time, but we'll hopefully see him before then, at tomorrow's Bull Theatre session.

What a way to start a Saturday! We met on a crisp, sunny Heath morning, with the autumn leaves doing their thing. Then it was straight into the hilliest parkrun in London.

After the run we swapped uniform for pink hi-vis and joined the parkrun volunteer team on barcode scanning at the finish. Phones in hand, we scanned runners, joggers and walkers across the line, from speedy finishers to families out for a stroll. Every scan means someone gets their time and their result, so it’s a small job that matters a lot to the people running. On this park run 601 people decided to run 5k as a morning start.

It was a lovely mix of people, with plenty of smiles and a few muddy shoes. Scanning is a great way to give something back to a free, community-run event that gets people moving every single week.

Hope to see you out there next time!

The amazing Finchley Pollinators set themselves a huge target this year: 600 mini-meadows in 60 days. And at the last count I saw, they'd passed 630!

Barnet Goodgymmers have helped sow a few of these already (including one at the Fuel Land Allotments and one more coming at the Friern Barnet Community Library).

For this one, our resident conservationists had some meadow grass seeds to mix in, to help bind the soil when the wildflowers aren't in season. We mixed the seeds and sowed the mini-meadow, then trampled the soil. Then we hard-raked the grass in the sunny patch to rough up the soil and sowed yellow rattle. Filip then sprinkled the rest of the meadow grass seeds in the bare patches across the green, which were left behind after the summer's drought. Chloe took us over to the path patch in the fence, where we then sowed some seeds donated from another meadow nearby, along with some old wild strawberries, which may or may not make it. Thanks to David for coming along and helping out!

Fingers crossed for next spring that some of it will grow! We'll be back with bramble bashes and we're sourcing bulbs and other donations to put in as well.