6 Goodgymmers did their best to literally put on the Ritz in Russell Park last night as they brought down an unsteady bug hotel then rebuilt it to a much safer spec in a kid's playground. Boom!

You Can Check Out Any Time You Like...

As the good folk at Noel Park Big Local get ready for the grand opening of their new playground this Saturday, they requested our help in securing a bug hotel that had been built with some questionable foundations and was presenting a risk in the brand new playground.

Our Goodgymmers, armed with gloves and boundless enthusiasm, got on with the task at once. Niamh, making her glorious return, took it upon herself to rally the troops with her inimitable style - in other words, the evening was dominated by innuendos about drilling and enjoying a good Bosch™. You were greatly missed, Niamh <3 And many thanks for today's musical pun.

Dave even found time to take a factory-sized broom to the outside of the playground and swept a small mountain of leaves to prepare the area for some power-washer action that will happen later this week, much to Julie 'I love power tools and putting people in bins' Fisher's chagrin.

After an hour, a much more steady and secure abode had been constructed for our our friends of the bug persuasion and the new playground looked in amazing shape for this weekend, if we say so ourselves.

Boom!

7 Goodgymmers were in for a proper biceps workout as they helped the always wonderful Alan from the Meadow Orchard to harvest some clay for a forthcoming session.

CSI: Haringey

Our Goodgymmers arrived at the Meadow Orchard tonight, full of smiles and bonhomie, completely unaware of what a bit of clay harvesting actually entailed.

Very soon we found out it was a matter of get busy living, or get busy digging and as the Shawshank Redemption references rolled out from our Goodgymmers, we shovelled our way into the bit of the Orchard's prepped for us for the task at hand. The area, formerly the site of tennis courts apparently, was tough to get through but once we reached a depth of about a third of a Gramps, we reached the beautiful, sticky, messy London clay. What a sight to behold.

We then began packing it up in bags to be used at a later date in an eco-building project.

Boom.

Then, in true Andy Dufresne style, we effectively snuck out of the Orchard while Alan from the Friends group was distracted looking for more bags to fill! You can read their much better version of this story - here

We made our way to the pub afterwards for beverages and to celebrate in true #BadGym style our Paul's birthday.

Fun.

Emily and myself arrived and got straight to work with this familiar task at Traid to help the team there with their seasonal stock changeover. Or so we thought.

The usual task is to bundle all the unsold clothes into boxes, easy! But today they needed to send cages of carefully folded clothes on the hangers to another store for them to sell. So after a bit of a wonky start, the team graciously showed us the correct way to fold them on the cages, sorry! Correct folding method shown in photo! Emily even picked herself a fancy new GoodGym outfit!

We were all done in the allotted time and on our ways into the evening, to a life drawing class for one of us and home for a lie down for another of us. 😃

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!

It was back to nursery for 4 Goodgymmers as we ferried plants to a from at Russell Park.

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

A small hiccup with our task for the evening meant that our Goodgymmers had to detour to Russell Park to complete next week's task tonight instead.

LIke the pros that they are, our heroes were lending the Friends group a had as they were salvaging literal hundreds of plants for a certain death (being binned) by transferring to the safe haven of a new plant nursery (Floyde's Garden).

Armed with gloves, a wheelbarrow, and buttery underfoot reflexes, our Goodgymmers made light work of the dark task. Highlight of the chat was the moment when our Julie, returning from some glorious time away, regaled us with the story that she got so excited during her holiday telling someone about Goodgym Haringey that she... check notes... fell off a high rock! We were assured she was ok. But there you go, I suppose I need to add health risks tags to future run invites. Prolonged exposure to Goodgym Haringey may cause clumsiness.

Just before 8, we had successfully saved every single plant and we all headed home, in search of warmth and sustenance.

Join us next week when we'll be actually doing tonight's task instead!

Two Goodgymmers defied the weather as they joined the Russell Park Wellbeing Walk for a good old natter.

Rain, rain, go away

Euclides joined Rich, who was leading today's walk. They were joined by some hardy residents who refused to give in to the weather and got to Russell's Hub ready for a good walk.

We then took on the Russell Park/ Belmont Park loop at a nice easy pace, while we all had a good chat about our choice of make up foundation and future plans for a longer walk.

After about an hour, we are back at base camp, in search of warmer settings.

The walk is currently looking for volunteers who can lead this route once a month or so. Get in touch if you fancy it!