After Halloween night, when a horde of ghouls had haunted Northfield Allotments, wreaking terror in the hearts of young and grown-ups alike, a five-person Ghostbuster crew returned the following day to solve the allotment scare problem.

First, Jo, Dora and Kash exorcised the demons of drinking by removing the caps from empty wine bottles, releasing any intoxicated ghosts and preparing the glass for recycling. They then moved on to stacking chairs, while Nima and Sevan wheeled the foldable tables away to the event shed. The two later dismantled a gazebo (or was it a marquee?) and packed it away to rest in peace in the shed until the next occasion.

The exorcists then set off with wheelbarrows on a hunt for fluffy spiders, rubber bats and fake pumpkins, all of which needed sorting before being stored in the Halloween shed alongside the plastic skeleton crew.

The final tour around the allotment involved collecting carved pumpkins. After removing the lights from them, they were ready for smashing at the communal compost bin. Dora spotted a couple of small, intact pumpkins and decided to save them from the barbaric ritual. They escaped the smashing, only to end up in a red Thai curry. Yum!

12 goodgymers assembled to help the Northfield allotments team prepare the petrifying pumpkin trail for locals. We were planning to help out for 3 hours, but after little over an hour we'd checked off all the tasks on our list to great applause. Many hands really do make fright work!

We started the morning by moving the marquee/gazebo (not table) into position and getting the tables out. A mega cleanup mission then commenced as we wiped numerous tables and chairs to get them "allotment" clean. We then got the tables and chairs into position, hung up the pumpkin decorations and popped some lights into the portoloos. A small but mighty team went on a side quest to fill any pot holes along the path with woodchip.

As we finished in record time, we headed to a local coffee shop to refuel. Some of us came back later to make the most of our complimentary entry and refreshment kindly offered by the Northfield allotments team for our efforts.

Kash, Sevan and Steph ran from different sides of the borough to meet Clare at Northfield Allotments. This was the final task of the allotment's Halloween weekend... to exorcise the ghouls that had been plaguing the plots for the past few days.

As Clare led them into the allotments, past a dead body wrapped in crime scene tape, she pointed to the opposite side of the path. She matter of factly shared that police had dug up that plot for real in search of a real body 20 years ago, but nothing was found. Yikes.

Back to today's bodies, the GoodGym crew were sent out with a wheelbarrow to collect any spiders, skeletons or most scarily, bunting, which hadn't returned to the underworld after Saturday night's Halloween event. GoodGymers know that bunting can cause nightmares, so it was carefully removed from its stakes and neatly clothes-pegged together. Hopefully it won't cause any tangle tantrums at next year's setup.

Next, body parts and beasties were fished out of vats of water, spiders captured from their webs and Kash wrestled a snake out of a tree (check out the photo). Skeletons were put back into their cardboard coffins and moved to the "skeleton shed", with ghosts decanted into containment units. The team had to get particularly intimate with the old gardener skeleton as they needed to undress them before they were packed away 😳

With the allotments mostly back in order, Kash discovered the pumpkin graveyard where carefully crafted pumpkins had been placed on the compost heap. Was this a bad thing? Not if they were sacrificing their last days to feed the next generation of giant Northfield pumpkins.

Clare stayed a bit longer to wrap up the packing away. Kash, Sevan and Steph headed off to get some more exorcise, running onto their next jobs of the day.

Todays Mission brought GoodGymers to the drop-in session at the spooky Northfields Allotments, for final preparations and set up for the Halloween family event being held later in the day!

The day started bright and early with four GoodGymers on hand, Clare leading the charge for all the arrangements of the Halloween event, and with Kash, Sevan and Christos on litter picking duty along Radbourne Walk. Walking along the eerie entrance route of the event, the team picked up and disposed of bottles, wrappers and cans… and dug holes… clearing the path for visitors’ safety!

As the team made it halfway down the litter picking route, we welcomed some much-needed extra hands by Steph, Chris, Tish and later by A.B - now enough GoodGymers to divide and conquer the ghostly tasks at the Northfield Allotments, and spookify the Radbourne Way entrance route.

With Kash, Sevan and Steph continuing to make safe and clear out all the litter from their path, Christos, Chris and Tish were on hand with members from the Allotment community putting up decorated ropes and banners across the entrance route, swiftly carrying, connecting up the carabiners, and testing the batteries for the lights. But wait… this rope doesn’t fit across the walk… Some improvisation needed to rearrange the decorations and some creative problem solving with nearby trees to get all of the banners attached.

Lights checked and ready for the show!

What’s next on our list of tasks? Time to set up the tables and chairs in the main area of the event, with GoodGymers bringing out the Halloween-decorated table tops, attaching the legs and giving everything a spring clean before visitors arrive. Plastic chairs were carried out, as though appearing like ghosts from nowhere by Kash and the remaining group set to cleaning and wiping these down. Listening to the Halloween tunes played by A.B. helped to make quick work in setting up the chairs.

Some final odds and ends completed, and the Allotment was looking more ghoulish and terrifying! A parting comment by Clare for the completed tasks – “You really saved us today!”

Looking forward to seeing the incredible event!

Extra help was needed today at Northfields Allotments to continue setting up for the sold-out Halloween family event on Saturday! This was just the task for four GoodGymers on Friday afternoon, with Clare, Christos, Roberta and Kash joining to continue decorating and preparing the site for the event.

The invaluable guidance provided by Clare to help our decorating talents shine through for this Halloween event – “More is more!!”

And with that, the group were focused on decorating the inside of the food and drinks marquee whilst the rain was falling hard. Christos and Kash started out carefully tying up the Halloween-themed “Trick or Treat!” bunting to the inside of the marquee. But with more complex decorations, a simple tie was no longer an option. What to do now?

No issue at all when there is Gaffa tape on hand, quickly becoming the tool of choice to hold up all the decorations! Roberta ensured the eerie bat had a prime place looking down on us, and with balloons being blown up, this completed the Spooky-themed decorations in the marquee.

Still time for one last task… to set up half of the more than 100 pumpkins - that had been so impressively carved by the previous days’ GoodGymers - along the Pumpkin trail! The team made quick work spreading out the pumpkins across the trail in both directions, whilst admiring the ghostly, chilling, plots across the Allotments.

The task was finished up with a well-deserved tea and Jaffa cake, amongst the spooky decor!

The first Halloween-themed session of this season had a staggering turnout of six GoodGymers at Northfield Allotments! Was it the sunshine throughout the day, the lovely dog Rocket, Clare's marketing strategy for the Allotment tasks or everyone's craving for carving? We don't know!

The Pumpkin Trail organisers and the GoodGymers had 109 pumpkins ahead of them to carve - it was quite an intimidating number! Luckily, Rocket the dog put everyone at ease with his serene demeanour. For the moral support he provided, Rocket rightfully scored plenty of ear scratches and even a few treats from Michelle!

Michelle, the most seasoned GoodGymer at the session, showed everyone what efficiency is, without skimping on quality (everyone seeing Michelle perfecting her bats can attest to that). She probably carved most of the GoodGym pumpkins although she claimed she had never done that before. Well, some of us remembered that last year, she was able to even carve a pumpkin face with a hammer if needed. What a legend!

Apart from Clare, who had a go at the pumpkin craft the year before, each GoodGymer was a pumpkin-carving virgin about to turn into an artist. While others built confidence wielding the knives, Clare got into the business of gutting the pumpkins with a knife and an ice cream scoop - someone had to do it together with Martin (the allotment holder interested exclusively in pumpkin gutting rather than decorating them) to supply craftspeople with carving material. Clare reignited her artsy side at the end by carving her last pumpkin with an amazing flame pattern.

Roberta showed us the precision of a dental surgeon with her elaborate pumpkin teeth patterns. Her creativity, combined with some inspiration from the internet, produced pumpkins with precise cat and bat designs.

Alaa, being into arts and crafts, put a lot of meticulous knife work into her creations, unleashing her talent to come up with probably the most intricate pumpkin faces we have seen today. The number of pointy teeth in her last pumpkin would put a great white shark to shame!

Kash appreciated the sheets with pumpkin face templates at the tables, but eventually decided not to follow the rules and created her own avant-garde styles from creepy pumpkins with stitches in place of eyes to twisted half moons and stars.

Diana, who was about to find out today that deep inside she was a hidden GoodGymer, already must have known she had an inner artist. Her pumpkins went beyond the ragged mouths and ghoulish eyes. Diana's creations were full of subtle beauty, with their gorgeous smiles and hearts in place of their eyes - just as they came from a place where Halloween meet Valentines.

Welcome to your first GoodGym Diana!

By 6 pm all the pumpkins were dunked in bleach for protection from rotting and hidden under tarpaulin. We all keep our fingers crossed they will not suffer any attention from the foxes and slugs before Saturday! The allotment team was astonished at how quickly everyone managed to finish the job as a team.

"We would not have done it so quickly without GoodGym! We'd be carving them for three days!" - Christina.

The pumpkin carving is done, but there are still tasks at the allotments ahead of the big event - come along on Friday and Saturday for more fun decorating the site!