It was time for our regular visit to Chiswick House, one of our favourite local tasks. The grounds are run as a charity helping to preserve and maintain the historic estate for everyone to enjoy, with volunteers playing a huge part in keeping it safe and welcoming.

We met at the Estates Yard, where we were greeted by Philippa, who manages the volunteers, and Hugo, a handsome spaniel who had appointed himself Head of Operations for the evening.

Hugo wasted no time 'helping'. Within moments he had acquired a pair of gloves and was proudly doing the rounds and leading by example.

Our destination for the evening was appropriately enough the dog play area, where we were soon joined by a healthy contingent of West London's canine community. The task was to shovel and spread wood chip across the area to keep it in good condition.

We got to work raking, shovelling and transporting. It soon transpired that some of us were better protected from the weather than others (see photographic evidence). As the evening progressed, we became steadily wetter yet no less determined. Despite the conditions, the two piles steadily shrank as the play area improved.

In half an hour we were pretty much done and Philippa was impressed with the speed and efficiency of the group. It's amazing what a GoodGym team can achieve when presented with a task and a deadline.

With the task completed and the dog play area looking much refreshed, we headed back to base for stretches and a chance to dry off slightly.

Thanks to everyone who came along and braved the rain. Next up: our mission at Waterman's Park this Saturday

We had multiple jobs to do at Strand on the Green School last night — finishing off painting the nursery, moving a huge terrace-full of old furniture and toys down the stairs to the skip, and hedge cutting. Three different jobs, three skill sets, no problem.

We ran over to the task where we met caretaker Clare and got straight to work. Michelle, Breda, Lucy and Emily tackled the nursery painting, Jon, Kash, Maxime, Chris, Jonny and Fran became an efficient furniture-moving conveyor belt up and down the stairs, while Gus and Luis turned hedge cutting into an art form outside.

Within just 45 minutes all three jobs were complete. With 12 of us working for 45 minutes, that’s the equivalent of 9 hours (or a full working day!) of work saved for one caretaker — and Clare was delighted with how much time we’d saved her.

With the jobs done, it was time for a lower body blast with three different intensity options to keep everyone moving. We’re also all still wondering what Michelle’s mysterious final blue item could be… answers on a postcard.

After that, we headed back to base for stretches on the grass and a well-earned cool down.

Next week we’re off to Gunnersbury to sort compost — see you there for what will hopefully be a slightly cooler task!

We might be on the cusp of a heatwave but yesterday in Chiswick threatened a soaking - thankfully we managed to avoid a repeat of last week!

Last night we were back at Chiswick House for our regular task. Our last visit had been cancelled due to high winds — clearly Chiswick likes to keep things interesting weather-wise.

When we arrived, we met the rest of the team along with Grace, who led us over to our task area. Armed with gloves and loppers, we set about tackling bindweed, brambles and pretty much every other plant that dared grow there. Sadly there were no hedgehog sightings this time, only a disgusting collection of abandoned dog poo bags.

The time flew by as we chatted an d worked and before long we had mountains of cuttings to haul back and load up, leaving the area looking far tidier than we found it.

Then we headed over to Turnham Green for a fairly mean fitness session — apologies for that. In pairs, we battled it out to see who could rack up the most squats, sit ups, press ups and burpees. And after all that effort… I completely forgot to check which pair actually won. Oops. Sorry about that. But after surviving that session, you’re all winners.

There’s also a mission in the Sunday sunshine this week celebrating Gunnersbury’s 100th birthday — can you make it?

A very sunny evening saw us gathering in front of Chiswick Town Hall, with fitness-leader-in-training Ariane nervously leading the group through a warm up session. Some strong winds had caused Chiswick House to have to close the grounds early, so we were off to some last minute litter picking work down at Kew Bridge as an alternative. We had an easy 1.5k run down to the river to meet up with the rest of the team.

Most importantly, there were lots of celebrations to be had this evening! First for Michelle, Lucy, and Remy (with us in spirit) for completing the London Marathon at the weekend, and then for Steph for reaching the impressive milestone of 1000 good deeds! We welcomed Chris to his first GoodGym session; welcome! He was given a quick run down of all things GG Hounslow (e.g, do you prefer Waitrose or M&S? Do you like Gails? Here’s the time Luis found… nevermind.)

Then on to the task at hand. However, we met our next challenge when we discovered that the canoe club had already set off for their evening paddle, taking the key to the equipment shed with them! But we’re not to be put off that easily. As Ana sprinted away to get some bin bags from the local Sainsbury’s, the group had a quick round of fitness Simon Says (well done Lucy for tricking everyone into not doing burpees) before we made ourselves useful having a general weed around the area.

Once Ana was back with an assortment of bin bags, we had a speedy litter pick, including gathering up a derelict rug, and making a phone call to the experts to deal with some more unsavory finds.

Despite the last minute changes, we still managed to fill five bin bags and clear the paving by the draw dock. Great work everyone! All that was left was to finish with a run back to the town hall and a quick stretch. Proof that it's actually quite hard to stop GoodGymers en masse doing something useful!