Seven Goodgymmers painted the town red (and green, and yellow...) as they lent a hand to the Friends of Carbuncle Passage for a very colourful new task.

Leave the catcalling to the cats

Our Goodgymmers were excited to be joining the wonderful folk from the Friends of Hartington Park and Carbuncle Passage as they look to transform this throughway connecting Tottenham to the Marshes in the east. A mission right up our street, if you ask us.

We were welcome by Chloe who had kindly provided us with drinks and plenty of paintbrushes and we wasted no time. Niamh, Sarah, and Mark made up Ninja Team A, entrusted with varnishing the lovely artwork that some residents had painted on the fences the previous weekend.

Ninja Team B, aka. Dave, Neil, and Ed, were in turn tasked with sanding and priming a fence for a forthcoming painting sesh. Gramps, as always, made himself busy floating between the two teams and generally trying to avoid any real work.

We painted to our hearts' content while conversation ranged from the unbearable nuisance of catcalling (come on, lads, do better!) to the touching story of the lovely rainbow on the passage. 

It was a lovely evening and Chloe seemed satisfied with our handiwork so we are sure to be visiting the passage again some time soon.

A return visit to Ms B's (and third time lucky in terms of attending this particular mission) to fix a loose door handle, stop a squeak in her fridge door, and take a look at some fly screens that had worked loose.

Fortunately on a previous mission I'd tightened the door handle to her bedroom so the item in question was familiar (this time leading into her living room), and it was a quick removal of the cover, tightening of the screws and putting it all back together.

Her fridge door had stopped squeaking (she gave me a demonstration!) so that didn't require further attention, but she had some fly screens on her window which had come loose. Upon closer inspection it was clear that the glue holding the velcro tapes was no longer sticking to the screens, so Ms B will get some replacement tape, and a return mission will then be required to get them firmly reattached.

8 Goodgymmers made their way to Floyde's Garden in Wood Green to lend the Friends of Russell Park a hand in giving a very thirsty community garden a drink

Role Models

It's hot out there, y'all. I'm sure I don't need to tell you. And gardens all across London are feeling the heat. The Friends of Russell Park pressed the big red button labelled 'Help Needed, Dearest Goodgym' and it would have been churlish of us to ignore them.

When we turned up, we found out that we only had one hose for the job. Undettered, Dave and Gramps scoured the grounds for anything that could be useful and we managed to find some buckets and a massive empty bottle, and all our Goodgymers got on with the job.

Longtime readers of these reports (the two or three of you who are still humouring me after all these years) will have already noticed that this is the location where our wonderful Latoya always gets lost on the way to. We all held our breath tonight as 7pm came and went and Latoya was nowhere to be found. Some of us might have placed a bet on how late she would get there, if at all. Without giving away too much, she got there in the end and earned herself her task credit by quickly arranging an impromptu Badgym outing. <3

Along the way, we even managed to rope in some local kids to give us a hand with the watering and our Sarah offered herself up as the target in some very chaotic water target practice.

By 8pm, we where all on our Badgym way, having worked up a thirst ourselves.

Come next week as we celebrate six years of Gramps in charge by painting the town red (and blue, and green, and.....) 

The annual setting-up of the Tottenham Ten is a lovely task. A summer's wander round the marshes, noting down which plum trees are looking like a likely foraging spot later in the year. And occasionally pausing to see who's got any keep left signs left and smash them into the ground with a hammer.

Okay there's a punchline about More Than 1 Intended / More Than One In-(Tottenham)-Ten-Did. But I'm not getting there.

Anyway we then adjourned to the nearby Italian, to discuss the merits of different pizza bases.

4 Goodgymmers faced not one but two task cancellations but they didn't let that stop them from going out there, doing some good. Heroes.

Is that a flatpack, or are you just pleased to see me?

We were invited by the Friends of Bowes Park to carry out an extensive litter pick of the New River Hidden Path and our Goodgymmers jumped at the chance with arms wide open.

Along the normal fare of discarded cigarette butts and Fastgas cylinders, we were approached by a member of the public who gifted us a book, we spotted a black shag, and Paul tried to kill Julie with an orange lifebuoy ring - but in a nice way.

Kudos to our Goodgymmers for rescuing a nice tasks out of the jaws of defeat after two (!) late task cancellations. 

Gramps joined Rich for this week's wellbeing walk in Russell Park and Belmont Park. A brisk pace was set by one of our regular walkers, while chat centred around postive podcasting and this week's theatre exploits by one of our walkers. Lovely.