Every strike you make, every glass you break...

When GoodGymers from Ealing found out about the weekend community clean-up in Southall's Western Road Urban Garden, they were excited about the first day of the event, but no one seemed to be able to come on the second day. After five of us attended the big Saturday clean up, everything changed. We returned on Sunday for more samosas (I mean: digging the soil! 😅) and in greater numbers! We had five Ealing folks and Tabitha from GoodGym Brighton, who was the force behind the endeavour. Tabitha told us about the event in the first place. Without her, the fantastic collab between GoodGym Ealing and the Southall Community Alliance wouldn't happen! She deserves two good deeds for that - give her a cheer! 👏

Apart from yesterday's gang: Harvey, Sevan, Milly and Kash, we welcomed one of the Ealing legends, Bryon, who visited the urban garden for the first time. There were also more familiar faces that we met the previous day. While the new volunteers were going through their health & safety briefing, most of us were ready to pick up our tools and get straight to work (or pick up the pakoras and then get to work! 😜).

On Saturday, Janpal from the SCA had promised us that Sunday would be about enjoying the milder weather and planting trees. That was true, yet there was digging work still to be done. The mattocks (it is that thing you may call a pickaxe but the part you use for hitting is flatter in a mattock) went into action again. We crashed the rocks and smashed the glass and tiles hidden under the soil. The amount of 30-year-old rubbish we kept digging out seemed infinite. Milly diligently was sifting through the heaps of antiques we discovered, separating glass from rusty metal, rocks from roots, and plush ducks from plastic bunnies.

Time flies while you are having fun! It was nearly 1 pm when we decided we have done enough with mattocks and forks to remove the debris and prepare the soil for tree planting. It was the time for our favourite snacks, tea or coffee, and a chat with our new volunteer friends. Milly was not among those who ran straight to the delicious fritters 😋, but accompanied Mani from Southall Transition in putting out the tree plugs.

After the break, Mani gave us instructions with a demo on how to plant a tree 🌱. It looked simple. The reality had lots of surprises for us! We were supposed to dig the soil for the whole depth of a spade's blade, but after getting just halfway there, we kept hitting rocks, bricks or metal rods. We had to repeat the exercise of digging out the waste again! GoodGymers don't get easily discouraged and always welcome a good workout, so we removed the obstacles and put the trees where they belonged. The next stage was mulching (something the Ealing crew are experts in!) and watering the new trees (the real-life farmer's walk workout).

The session finished with group photos and the last chance to grab refreshments before heading off. While saying our goodbyes, we looked at the sky and caught sight of the famous Jeffrey the Red Kite 🪶. He was on his way to spreading the news about the brilliant work in the Western Road Community Garden across the whole borough.