Sevan and Kash decided to spend their day of GoodGymming in three different boroughs outside their home area of Ealing. After leaving the Chiswick Eyot in GoodGym Hounslow, before it got cut off from the dry land by the Thames high tide, they continued their journey eastward. The 3.5 km run took them to GoodGym Hammersmith & Fulham, where Mr A awaited their help with sweeping leaves in his tiny back garden.

"I don't know how you are going to do that without a shovel. Last year, a man came with a shovel to do it." - Mr A.

The GoodGymers also learned that their predecessor was an Englishman proficient in gardening. Since neither of them was an English gardener, there was no point in measuring themselves to such distant standards. They decided to simply get on with the job. Kash went downstairs to evaluate the difficulty of that seemingly insurmountable task.

"We will just do it with our hands." - Kash.

As it turned out, Mr A had brooms and dustpans, so using only hands was not even necessary. In 30 minutes, Sevan and Kash swept and packed up not only dried leaves, but also all the creeping weeds they had pulled out, then they moved six sacks of green waste to the front garden. Unbeleafable!

For this time we had quite a team with Sevan, Kash, Maria and Amy joining us from Ealing! Most of use were here early, joining the existing volunteers of Thames 21. They publish these events broadly and as a result, on top of regular, they always have a few new faces as well, one of them who came all the way from... Stratford! We also meet Annie who has been joining the a few of the Eyot missions by herself until now. After a long and detailed briefing, covering the ins and out of Balsam, we depart towards the Eyot, equipped with Thames Mud Proof Wellies. Despite the sunny weather of the past few days the mud is as sticky as usual, since the Thames tide never stop. Getting into the island, we spread thin as each person hunt for Balsam. The bravest ones, such as Sevan, go and open up a new path in the middle of nowehre to hunt for the invasive one. After a couple of hours of slashing, searching and uprooting the team finally disband as some of us need to go to the next task. A nice bounty from this session!

Mistakes and miscommunication happen to everyone. Standing in front of Mrs H's house on Saturday afternoon for their final task of the day, Sevan and Kash found themselves ringing the doorbell and calling Mrs H to no avail. Eventually, after 10 minutes, the lady answered Sevan's phone call, tired and surprised to find out that they were waiting at the front door. Mrs H was convinced that the mission was on Sunday and wasn't ready physically or mentally for the task to go ahead the day before. The GoodGymers had no choice but to admit defeat and jog back to Ealing earlier than expected.

Mrs H, although not knowing how the mistake had occurred in the first place, was full of regret about what had happened. She apologised to Sevan, then tried to call GoodGym on Saturday to reschedule the mission, yet no one could have picked up as it was the day off for the Missions team. Then she received a phone call with an offer she could not refuse. Well, she could have! But would you say no to Kash? Although Sevan was already busy on Sunday, Kash did some calculations after returning home from the failed mission, and figured that she could make it to Mrs H on Sunday afternoon, if she took a train from Putney, where she was expecting to finish another mission at 15:30. And that's what she did.

On Sunday, Kash ran 2km from where the train took her, and landed at Mrs H shortly after 16:00. As a single GoodGymer, she managed to cut the grass at the back and the front gardens, then speed-trim the hedge that was obstructing Mrs H's driveway. Mrs H couldn't have known that Kash simply doesn't like accepting defeat, so she was full of awe for the commitment.

"I won't forget it till the rest of my life."

The lady was full of kindness and gratitude and offered Kash a range of things, from tea and biscuits to a lift to the station (which wouldn't take Kash anywhere as the Piccadilly line to Heathrow wasn't running). Kash settled for a tea, then ran back 6.5 km to Ealing. As for Mrs H, she got her garden back. As for Kash, she got her mission. And as for defeat? It only got to enjoy its victory for about 24 hours.

Kash and Sevan were back at Mr R's for some fast flipping. After turning his medical mattress over in September, it was now time to do a back flip and put the original side back on top. Mr R had stripped the bedding off, so 3 minutes after they'd entered, they were wishing Mr R well and running off to their next mission.

On another toasty mission, there were many smaller tasks that Mrs M needed help with in her back garden. Jobs that she used to do herself and more recently couldn't as she was too tired or unsteady on her feet.

First, Mrs M asked for 2 dead plants to be removed from their pots, some daffodils that hadn't flowered this year to be cut back and to trim and tie back and overgrown shrub. These 3 items were quickly completed, so was there anything else to do?

There were 2 roses to dispose of and some weeds and invasive plants to pull out. Again, Kash and Sevan worked through these too. Was there anything else?

"There is one non-gardening job that I need help with"
"Did you see the For Sale sign outside the house?"
"An estate agent put it up early this morning"
"I'm very angry. My house is not for sale" - Mrs M

Sevan grabbed some secateurs and snipped the fake sign's cable ties, wrapping up today's tasks.

Another unusually hot weekend in May, another trip to Southall for GoodGym Ealing - this time to Western Road Urban Garden to help Southall Community Alliance with planting exotic crops ahead of the season.

The garden was visited not only by six GoodGymers but also, unexpectedly, by three police officers on patrol. While the GoodGym team started preparing the veg beds and erecting trellises for beans and gourds, the hosts Janpal and Ash gave the officers on duty a comprehensive tour of the food-growing space. And there were novelties since our team last visited the garden - a new beehive had been built behind the polytunnel, with dozens of stingy pollinators already getting busy around it!

On such a hot day, many would choose an indoor task in the shade, rather than digging weeds and shovelling compost in full sun. It wasn't the case at WRUG, where the only place that counted as indoors was the polytunnel. While the early arrivals, Maxime, Sevan and Kash were responsible for preparing the outside raised beds, Ash was assigned to help Janpal construct trellises. After almost an hour (with breaks, of course!) of roasting in the 44°C "oven", he developed such an engineering skill in trellis building that his capabilities were sought for outdoors, at the raised beds, freshly weeded and topped with compost. Ash swapped with Kash and Sevan, who, together with Lena, entered the polytunnel for the planting phase. Meanwhile, Ash taught Harvey and Maxime all his trellis know-how, and all three got to planting in the raised beds.

It was a special session for Ash, as he not only survived the polytunnel sweat challenge and spread the construction knowledge, but also hit a milestone of 25 good deeds - halfway to the black T-shirt!

The crops planted today, including many South Asian staples, were:

• Snake gourd
• Bottle gourd
• Kerala
• Pumpkin
• Melon
• Tomato
• Red bell pepper

As usual, Janpal prepared a feast for the volunteers, with plenty of ice cold water to keep us hydrated, bananas, strawberries, tangerines, giant blueberries, and staple samosas. Breaks in the shade with refreshments in reach definitely helped the team keep going!

We should see the fruit ready for harvest in a couple of months! Meanwhile, we are planning another community day at WRUG in June to prepare space for additional water storage at the garden. Sign up now!