World Cup fever had reached its peak with England’s semi final just hours away, but that meant plenty of time to fit in a good deed before kick off.

We met with tonight’s Manager, Jan from Friends of Turnham Green who gave us a briefing and a tactical run down of the big game and the goals for the evening. There was a trimming and clearing at the edges of the wildflower meadow to be done, litter to be picked, and the plants around the rockery needed a good watering following the wave of warm weather.

Time for kick off. No time to sit on the Spence! Kash and Gus tackled the strimming, whilst Max, Florian, Alan, Michelle and Steph raked up the trimmings, ready to go into one of the big blue Saka’s supported by Lucy. The other rubbish bags were taken on by Breda and Fran, also armed with the infamous Turnham Green tongs, as they Rice-d to defend the area from litter. Emily took it a little bit Eze-r, Pick(ford)ing rubbish and sharing the joys of GoodGym with the locals. Finally, playing up top on his own was Jon and the hose, giving the plants a good old hydration break on the rockery.

Captain Ana called for full time, and we had surely made our Marc (Guehi) to the area. A team photo to mark the occasion was taken, and a shout out to the Birthday Boy Alan, who celebrated a big shiny birthday on Monday. Hopefully a big shiny World Cup trophy coming back to England will also celebrate 60 years soon too!

The green was looking a lot less Messi, and Jan was pleased with the results. All that was left was to get ready for the real kick off at 8PM. Kane we bring it home? COME ON ENGLAND.

UPDATE: We in fact did not bring it home, much to our disappointment and now join our French counterparts in feeling miserable because of 11 grown men kicking a ball around. Euro’s in 2 years anyone?

Sixteen months have passed since GoodGym Ealing visited the IMPACT Theatre, a place where adults with severe learning disabilities can develop communication skills and confidence through performances on stage and creative arts.

Just like previously, the GoodGymers were contacted as trusted DIY experts when the time came to redecorate one of the art centre rooms - this time, the Creative Health Room, used for activities like yoga.

Three runners, Steph Ducat and Kash, led by Sevan, ran to the task from Ealing Broadway, Amy and Richard biked to Perivale individually, and Maria walked to the session, and then decided she wouldn't mind a few extra minutes in the outdoor gym while waiting for the others.

When task owner Peter opened the door, he was a bit surprised to find a larger group than those who had been visiting in the last few sessions.

"Is this a firing squad?" - Peter.

The arrivals turned out to be peaceful, and they decided to direct their energy towards the walls that needed prepping for painting. Who needs sandy beaches on a hot summer evening when you can have sandpaper! Different heights of GoodGymers came in handy while focusing on different parts of the four walls. One surface needed a particular smooth finish - the wall intended to become a projector display.

The team got to sanding, filling the room with constant rustling and raising plenty of dust. Peter equipped GoodGymers with face masks (who doesn't have a stock of spare face masks after 2020?) to reduce the amount of dust they inhaled.

After all the walls became nice and smooth, Richard fired up Henry the Hoover and did a round around the edges of the room to vacuum up the dust. Peter thanked everyone for the great job, then the GoodGymers ran, walked or cycled home - apart from the Frenchmen and Spaniards, who headed to the pub to catch the last minutes of their countries’ semi-final match.

Next week we are back for an outdoor task - but worry not - we'll be safe in the shade of the Half Acre woods while cutting back the wild summer growth to improve accessibility of the public paths. Sign up now to join us!

Monday, the 13th of July 2026, marked a new era in Mr G's shopping: his groceries were about to enter the digital age!

The regular mission beneficiary, well known to a group of West London GoodGymers for his unusual "book of labels" shopping list, artistic flair, and razor-sharp wit, decided to switch to online shopping. His objective was to supplement, rather than entirely replace, the end-of-the-week GoodGym shopping missions. The hope was that Mr G would be able to buy food more independently, including larger quantities of store cupboard items he couldn’t carry home himself.

Sevan and Kash signed up for this quest to render themselves obsolete as Mr G's shopping helpers - or at least reduce his dependence on GoodGymers' weekly availability.

Two GoodGymers and the beneficiary sat together around a 15-year-old laptop that dictated the pace of the mission, suspensefully displaying a blank browser window for long stretches, keeping everyone on the edge of the fashionable 1930s chairs.

The good news was that Mr G (or someone acting on his behalf) had already set up a Sainsbury's customer account, filled in his address details and special instructions to carry the purchased goods upstairs. Mr G even had the correct details recorded to log into the account. He had also already added a few items to his virtual basket.

During the mission, the GoodGymers introduced Mr G to the ease of using the search box rather than looking up items by category. The gentleman went through the user flow himself with minimal guidance, although he couldn't resist commenting on the website's UX and advertising from the perspective of a former professional in the display and sale of high-end products.

Some of the items Mr G selected for his basket reflected what Kash, Alan or others regularly used to buy in the physical Sainsbury's, but there were also items Mr G wouldn't always have on his weekly list. Chicken korma ready meals turned out to be a huge disappointment, as there were no such products available without a ton of rice in the portion, no matter whether one looked in a store aisle or on Sainsbury's website. There were difficult words like quiche to type and important choices to be made about the toilet paper.

"Cheap, but not just the cheapest one - that looks abrasive!"

Mr G was quick to make decisions about the product alternatives.

"I don't want the Taste the Difference - I cannot taste the difference!"

Eventually, the trio arrived at the checkout. The checkout had even more distractions than the product pages and countless screens to click through, evading the retailer's attempts to sell Mr G even more stuff.

The last hurdle, after selecting the delivery slot, was entering the payment details and navigating the credit card’s two-factor verification, expertly guided by Sevan. In the end, an order confirmation page appeared, resulting in an explosion of cheer entirely unrelated to the World Cup.

The delivery slot was diligently noted down. It was a successful "dry run", as Mr G put it - hopefully just the beginning of an era of greater independence. The gentleman felt much more confident about online shopping after going through the process once, but would love to have someone beside him one or two more times to become more familiar with the flow.

When a pair of Ealing GoodGymers walked to their afternoon task in Greenford, Kash immediately recognised the unforgettable hedge of eternity on the way - a 100-foot green monster she'd trimmed last year. Kash was pleased to see that the hedge, although still insanely tall, was maintained well enough not to cause trouble for pedestrians and cars parked next to it.

Now, what awaited Sevan and Kash at Mrs E's and her husband's place, who happened to live a few metres away from the Hedge of Eternity? Were the monstrous hedges the norm in the area?

The Sunday afternoon mission beneficiaries were a couple in their eighties who used to care for their front and back gardens, but were no longer able to do so due to their declining health. The back garden was seriously overgrown, but Mrs E was most anxious about the front garden and the impact of the uncontrolled growth of plants on the neighbours.

Kash, with the assistance of Mrs E's husband, fired up the heavy petrol strimmer and started trimming tall grass in front of the house. The smell of burnt fossil fuel made her think about how many new trees she should plant to offset all those greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, the weight of the power tool, the heavy vibrations in the arms and the impact on the older couple's wellbeing felt good.

Meanwhile, Sevan didn't have as intense an experience with his tool in the back garden, where he was cutting back the tall weeds at the house wall with shears. Occasionally, he would pull some roots by hand to prevent regrowth. The shears were not perfectly aligned and a bit blunt, but Sevan persevered with his task. On a positive note, he got to hear stories from Mrs E and her husband, who sat at the entrance to the back garden. Sevan also had a more frequent supply of cool water from the lovely older couple than Kash did in the front.

After Kash raked the grass with a huge rake ("This size would be perfect for a tennis court!" - Sevan), she came to the back to take Sevan's shears. Even though they weren't sharp, at least the shears were more effective than smaller secateurs against larger clusters of weeds. Sevan persevered no matter what and continued his work with the smaller cutters.

In the meantime, Kash did a speed trim (as speedy as she could with rather blunt shears) of two parts of Mrs E's hedge that stuck out the most. So there were hedges after all! Mrs E joined Kash this time for a chat and revealed her impressive past as a volunteer and a member of the neighbours watch for a few decades!

Sevan came to the front to help sweep the cuttings and pack the green wheelie bin to the brim with garden waste. Mrs E was very happy to see the bin loaded as it had already been paid for, but no one was fit enough to do the weeding, trimming and strimming to fill it.

There is more work to do in both front and back gardens for Mrs E and her husband, so now the Ealing GoodGymers are looking forward to a follow-up mission for such a nice older couple.

The third session with Clean Up River Brent this summer eventually brought us a new chapter in the river’s story: planting! After hacking the unwanted plants last month, Andrew, Steph Ducat, Sevan and Kash were back at the Gurnell / Sixty Trees Way in Greenford to prepare the riverbank soil for the plants that had finally been delivered to Ben from CURB. The Ealing GoodGymers were joined this time by Maxime from GoodGym Hounslow and balsam bashers Andres and Mark.

While the team was getting into wellies or waders on that hot July morning (it was already 30 degrees!), Ben lined up the boxes with plugs and a bag of reeds in rows. The plants were arranged in the order in which they would be placed on the riverbank:

• Juncus - their grass-looking plugs would be planted directly in the gravel, where the water was shallow; their superpower is to filter the junk out of water - they are amazing at fighting the river pollution!

• Iris - those flowering plants can tolerate either very dry or very damp environments (depending on the variety); their beautiful flowers easily attract both human and pollinator attention.

• Typha a.k.a. bullrush - according to Ben, those were the plants whose dark brown spikes looked like cigars; we couldn’t tell that from the appearance of the young plants yet, but could imagine them as a typical wetland inhabitant that is great at accumulating toxins from polluted water.

• Reeds - or Phragmites; those aquatic plants can easily grow taller than a person (maybe not taller than Ben); their roots are excellent at filtering out impurities from sewage water, which sadly enters the River Brent.

• Hemp agrimony - this herb’s fluffy florets are irresistible for pollinators; despite cannabinum in the name it’s not the cannabis you may be thinking about.

Ben was hoping for three outcomes of our successful planting session:

• Improvement of water quality

• Habitat creation

• Boosting the riverbank’s aesthetic appearance

Before we got to planting this Sunday, we had to spend some time preparing the soil, which, despite being so close to the water, was quite dry in the hot weather - and full of tangled bramble roots! That’s why we’ve left some of the planting fun for another session in two weeks. Fancy joining us in this biodiversity quest? Sign up now!