Garden Leave

Four of the regular Tower Hamlets attendees didn’t appear this week.

It was almost as if someone had organised a long, hilly walk the day before which had left them too tired or injured for another session...

But super six hard-working GoodGymers were sufficient to complete tasks in some quite confined spaces in the Island House Community Centre. When the yoga class had dissipated, we met Annemarie, and were pleased to hear she’d been kept on at the centre after some recent redundancies.

I went with Martin and Rupert to paint the stair railings. Martin seemed to be lying down on the job, but in reality this was the best angle to tackle the task, as he applied delicate brush strokes like a true artist. Rupert headed for a lower floor and found he had a lot in common with Annemarie: remarkably they both had considerable knowledge of local shops and restaurants in the village of Pevensey, Sussex.

We welcomed recent recruits Kitty and Muzammel, both attending their first Monday night group task. On the night they’d opted for gardening rather than painting, so I went to check how they and Ivo were getting on with this task. Given what I understand to be gardening, I was very surprised to find them in the office, manoeuvring a filing cabinet around a difficult corner.

Who knew a filing cabinet could be recycled

It transpired that the cabinet had outlived its previous use as a holder of documents, and was to be repurposed as a planter in the rooftop garden. Who knew a filing cabinet could be recycled. This involved considerable rearrangement of the office, in order to create space to relocate the awkward cabinet around some tight corners, and up the stairs to the roof. GoodGymers’ planning and ingenuity won the day.

The “gardeners” also trimmed a trellis panel to fit where it was needed, and the allocated hour passed by quickly.

But we’ll be back.