Have you ever wondered what happens to the dead Christmas trees Ealing Council collects each January after the festive season's end? They are being sent to a cemetery. Literally.

Just as a year ago, the 2025 trees got minced into woodchip and dropped at the South Ealing Cemetery. We were going to use it to cover the side paths and disguise the sins of the last year: suspicious walkways. A year ago, the woodchip the cemetery received was rough and contained large, sharp pieces of timber, not really classifying as woodchip on which you could walk safely and comfortably. This year, having learnt lessons from 2025, the Council provided fine woodchip, mostly made of fragrant conifer needles. What a treat to shovel!

The rain might have scared off some of this morning's crew, but five GoodGymers showed up and joined Paul and two other volunteers from Ealing Parks Foundation for a 2-hour workout.

Sevan, Steph and Kash knew the drill: shovel the woodchip into a wheelbarrow, transport, tip on a path, and rake, rinse and repeat. Devi joined the shovel & wheelbarrow team with enthusiasm and grit. Despite the cemetery task being only her second session and the weather being a far cry from what we call a glorious day, Devi has proven to be a tenacious GoodGymer, enjoying an intense, non-stop activity outdoors. Great to see such a spirit!

Meanwhile, James found raking the paths thoroughly satisfying - so satisfying that he levelled every single barrow of woodchip dropped on all three paths we managed to do in the two hours allocated. Being a perfectionist and having a special connection to the green space must have helped. Great work, James!

Paul was both impressed and delighted by the number of paths woodchipped, and particularly happy to see a pathway to the Mausoleum being covered, as it was on the route of the cemetery's guided walk.

According to our data scientist Steph, each of the GoodGymers transporting the woodchip covered roughly 5km of walking with a wheelbarrow. That's not only plenty of the daily steps walked by midday, but also a fantastic impact on the calm, historic green space of South Ealing for everyone to enjoy.

The recently established Pear Tree Park was named by children from a local school, drawing inspiration from Perivale, where the green space is located. Perivale, in turn, can be loosely interpreted as “a valley of pear trees”. Wouldn’t it be appropriate then to have some eponymous fruit trees in Pear Tree Park - let’s say, fifty of them?

On a Sunday morning, five GoodGymers met in a café in Pitshanger for a 2km run or walk to the place that had once been a golf course, now transforming into a vibrant, green space for everyone. Steph Ducat, Zuzanna, and Kash ran through Pitshanger Park, past St Mary’s Church, while Devi and Sevan walked a different route, with the Brent Viaduct and Sixty Trees Lane as the main landmarks. Harvey ran directly to the task and met the rest of the team at the Pear Tree Bistro.

In the afternoon, Pear Tree Park was going to host a family-friendly pear tree planting volunteering session, and the organisers grew in confidence, seeing six pairs of GoodGym hands, keen to help with digging ahead of the event. Richard from Ealing Greenwayers and Diana, the bistro owner, brought spades and wheelbarrows, and marked on the grass where the holes were expected to appear.

Digging techniques and hole shapes varied from person to person. From Harvey’s perfect squares, through Steph's pizza slices, to Sevan’s and Kash’s whole round-style pizzas. Topsoil with the grass was systematically wheelbarrowed away, in case it contained traces of weed killer, thanks to its golf course past. The deeper the spades went, the more rocks they encountered, and digging became tougher.

Devi, who chose Pear Tree Park as her first GoodGym session, faced the demanding task head-on, excavating and wheelbarrowing soil like a pro, and even choosing more digging over a coffee break. What a determination! That said, we can safely report that Devi had been socialising and caffeinating with us earlier on, and is great to have around for a chat. Welcome Devi!

In 90 minutes, we got just a bit less than half of the required holes dug, which proved to be a great advantage as a starting point for the afternoon event!