Mrs R is proud of her garden, which shows as it's very well maintained. She and her husband, Mr G, both have health conditions meaning that it's now hard for them to do much of the physical work needed. That's why they called for GoodGym help.

Kash and Sevan arrived to find a fairly large garden and imagined all of the big jobs that they may be asked to do. Mrs R's needs were more targeted though, she wanted 2 of her trees to be pruned and she asked the duo to "give them more air".

Kash and Sevan focused on a tree each, Kash a cherry laurel and Sevan a camellia that was in bloom. Kash took a liberal interpretation of the instructions and freely trimmed away at the sides, top and internal branches of the cherry laurel. The leaves and branches bounced off Kash on their way to the ground where they left a carpet of trimmings.

A few metres away, Sevan interpreted the instructions in a more limited the way, making the camellia less dense by thoughtfully removing some internal branches and giving it a hair cut on top. He decided that he didn't want to make the tree look too bald. As it was still in bloom, he had big pink petals raining down on his head as he tried to free the cut branches.

Mrs R was immensely grateful to Kash and Sevan and to all volunteers who took the time to help people like her. On reviewing their work, it turned out that Mrs R preferred Kash's more radical approach to pruning (note to self!). She and her husband insisted that the GoodGymers have a cup of tea before they left and as it was the last task of the day, Kash and Sevan happily accepted.

Team S&K are back in town for weekend missions to support older residents in their borough. Today's chapter takes them for a 7 km run to Southall, where their first task is weeding in Mrs C's back garden. Mrs C used to be a keen gardener and tended to her flowerbeds herself, but now she has become unwell and too weak to hold a glass of water for longer than a few seconds. Fortunately, GoodGym help is on the way! But what's that? A row of five wheelie bins blocks the path to the garden! The volunteers reshuffle them and eagerly enter Mrs C's backyard with a green waste bin - too eagerly as the bin needs to come back - it belongs to the neighbour! Too much excitement. 😅

Before the weeding commences, Mrs C has a side quest.

Can you break this?

Sure, they can. The breakable object in question is a piece of chipboard. Kash gives it two attempts with a powerful stomp, but the unity of the wood particles is too strong. Sevan tries a different technique - a slam jump! 💥 With three jumps he breaks the board into four pieces. Impressive. Three pieces are small enough to fit into a bin bag but the fourth one needs more work. Kash redeems herself by trying the jump method and ends up with three new smaller fragments of chipboard that can be bagged. So much excitement! 😃

The weed-ridden flowerbed awaits. Sevan makes use of his assets: the height to untangle withered creeping plants from the fence, and patience to remove the weeds growing around the flowers. He is also resourceful - in his hands, a mason's trowel transforms into a hand spade and scissors into a secateur! Kash is more straightforward and grabs the available well-rounded gardening instrument: a fork! With its help, she extracts an old bush root, digs out extensive patches of weeds and turns the soil in areas without any flowers to save. Seven pots get tipped over as there are no plants (except weeds) inside anymore. So much excitement! 😃

Time for the clean-up. The weeds have been bagged regularly, so Sevan and Kash don't end up with a big pile of garden waste to sort out. They have time to sweep the soil off the concrete path. But what's that? Clink! One of the glasses of water Mrs C offered is down, oh no! Too much excitement. 🥲

Mrs C is happy with the mission result, despite the collateral damage. She enquires about the process to get more GoodGym support. Sevan and Kash know there is a second flowerbed full of weeds on the other side. Maybe that one gets a GoodGym treatment in the upcoming weeks too?

Kash, Alan and Sevan discovered that they were all volunteering at Acton Junior parkrun this morning, while Joanna was the Run Director for the day. There were lots of first timers, apparently encouraged by the good weather, which meant that Joanna felt that things were chaotic before the start. There were lots of questions about Junior parkrun and how it all worked.

As Sevan walked up the hill from the start with his timekeeper's stopwatch running, one of the volunteers said:

"You're timekeeping? Good luck with that! There must be around 80 children today"

"This is the first sunny day this year. Every Sunday until now has been windy or rainy or cold" - Marshal

Thankfully today wasn't one of those grim Sundays. Today was glorious... sunny and warm ☀️

A little further up the hill, the lead runner who'd passed Alan's marshal post asked Sevan "Where do I go?". Sevan pointed down the hill towards the next marshal. They must've been one of those newbies.

At the finish too some of the children had to learn about funnel and that they had to run through it, not past it. "Run through here", "no, don't stop, keep going" and "over here!" were heard over and over. In all Kash and the other barcode scanners recorded 56 times, including a few who didn't have barcodes yet and needed some last minute registration action.

It was great to see that all of the children were excited and enthusiastic today, which doesn't always happen. They must be solar powered.