The rain held off for Manuela and JP to visit Mrs O for some garden maintenance.

The task was listed as grass cutting but the absence of a lawn mower - or indeed any grass, as the lawn was mainly composed of moss - rendered that idea a little challenging.

Instead we gathered the available tools and set ourselves to a general tidy up, raking up the leaves on the lawn and in flower beds and doing some weeding in the beds and on the patio.

Then work was satisfying and we soon managed to fill 4 bags with the leaves and weeds we had gathered.

Mrs O was very satisfied and keen for a repeat experience with GoodGym!

The Monday morning food bank setup at St Mary’s was briefly at risk due to the late arrival of the delivery van with supplies from the central warehouse in Ealing.

Anna, Martin and JP (visiting from Richmond) were on hand and chatted with the other volunteers as we heard occasional updates on the van’s location and progress.

Eventually a cheer went up as the van arrived and we got to work rapidly unloading a bumper load of fresh and packaged food, including mango pieces, bananas, ready to eat meals and a huge load of coriander.

We quickly packed up the now-empty van with reusable boxes and plastic crates and sent the driver on his way, relieved that the food bank slot would go ahead as usual - and raced off to our next activities.

Forget box breath! Jason, the task owner, taught us pilates breathing techniques to help us engage our core and more effectively use the fork to break up the ground for weeding.

We meticulously weeded a number of beds, ready for brassicas to be planted and then watered the other areas which are already full of plants, on their way to becoming a food forest!

There had been much chatter about the friendly foxes who frequent the allotment and as we were packing up they came over to bid use thank you and farewell. A lovely way to spend a sunny autumn afternoon!