On the day of the 50th Anniversary of Brent River Park, Steph and Kash returned to Brent Meadow in late afternoon to do their morning setup - but in reverse!

The GoodGymers had missed the whole party and encountered a very quiet meadow, minutes before the event closure, with some stall holders, tired of heat, counting the time to 5pm. Apparently in the middle of the day it was not as quiet! Steph and Kash met familiar LAGER Canners at one of the stalls: Jacquie, who is also a GoodGymer, and Angela, whom Kash had met on a litterpicking event by the canal.

The first job for the GoodGymers was to collect the event signage and use their mildly fried brains to solve the puzzle of folding easels. Next up, the complexity went up with the puzzle of folding gazebos of various sizes. The most tricky part was fitting a folded gazebo in a cover. The answer was to change a letter. What does that mean? It means that an H-marked gazebo will fit in an H-marked bag, and not the one with the letter F on it!

The most exciting exercise was surely assisting our friend Ben from Clean Up River Brent with folding and loading his tents. The best part of it? Ben didn't want to dismantle the special "privacy tent" that served as the performers' changing room on the spot. He preferred to carry it as a whole towards his car, so we ended up running with Ben and the tent across the meadow like a giant kite, ready to fly.

Speaking of carrying constructed gazebos and tents around the park, the team had not make the same mistake as in the morning, navigating through a proper maze of obstacles to carry a gazebo towards the Millenium Maze! This time Steph had the pleasure to carry that gazebo back as a small, folded piece with only one other person.

It would be great to get another opportunity to support Brent River Park with its big event, and maybe see more of the activities. The next chance... in 50 years?

Sevan and Kash were already in Southall, after a midday mission, and only a short 2km run away from Featherstone High School, where they reunited with Steph, who squeezed more running and a pit stop at home into the day.

The day was hot, and despite being only a group of three, the GoodGymers made up a half of today's volunteers, alongside Alex, Andrew and Gurpal. It was a sweaty workout in the scorching sun, and we couldn't blame anyone for staying at home in such heath. Alex kindly brought us water, and our job in return was to water the plants. But there was more.

We started ambitiously, helping Gurpal from Southall Transition dig the "bad soil", contaminated with plastic, out of the area where Gurpal had planted berries for children. The planting had been done in a rush and Gurpal was not entirely happy with the soil quality, so the blueberries, strawberries and others had to be re-planted. While Kash came across a couple of bin bags buried in the soil, Steph encountered a drain cover under the layer of dirt, so that area was out of the planting plans.

While Steph and Kash helped Gurpal wheelbarrow the "good soil" to the berry bed, relocate the plants and scatter the compost around, Sevan was on the watering duty, carrying heavy canisters from the school to the thirsty plants. He was later joined by Steph, who loved the opportunity to splash a little bit in the cold, running water. Kash in the meantime removed some big weeds from a tiny raised bed.

The highlight of the community mission was the sight of a majestic dragonfly hanging over the pond. Steph managed to capture the view with his phone camera just before finishing the session.

We are looking to organise the next session at Featherstone late in July, so watch this space!

Mrs R's garden had a feature that makes GoodGymers quake in their boots... monoblock paving! As usual in summer, the cracks were full of all sorts of weeds which Mrs R wanted to have removed.

A rummage in the tool storage produced an edging tool, a pair of shears and a wire brush for K&S gardening to use. It was slow going in the midday heat, so they did what they could, pulling, scraping and sweeping up anything green.

They completed more than half of the driveway, leaving the rest for a future GoodGym visit.

Brent River Park celebrates 50 years, so 4 Goodgymers got up early and ran to Hanwell to help setup in order for the celebrations to go ahead smoothly. If it was a Park run day, we would have been too early!! We meet Tom from We run Ealing who was leading a running session to start the celebrations. On arrival, we noticed that the toilets were in place and that some white markings were already on the grass surely for the spots for each gazebo/tents or stalls...but we would have needed a helicopter to see them better from the sky. Katie and Ben were a bit puzzled as some of the gazebos laid out were not supposed to be there : where do they go and where are the others as different sizes for different stalls?! The team were told to start erecting some of the gazebos at specific locations(white marks on the grass), but some needed to be moved slightly around...musical gazebos. Then Freya, Kash, Sevan and myself Steph Ducat were given a specific mission. Hey dont look here or peep...we need privy-see!! We had a tent to put up as it was going to be the tent for some of the performers to get changed. It look like an IKEA tent and needed to either follow instructions in the bag or just get on with it and set it up. Small problem as we had 3 side panels and missing the 4th one so no keeping the eyes out! We then were given a side panel from one of the other gazebos. We then found a solution to keep it ducked away with some Gorilla tape. Then come a couple of quotes from Ben and Katie :

That's beautifully.put up guys. That's a wonderful erection - Ben The worst case is that the [makeshift door] flaps around while the women are naked inside - Katie

At a later stage, the privacy tent had to be moved across the park, behind the white van and the small bushes : no nude awakening anymore. Freya and Sevan were putting up some giant easels and Sevan helped with the folding picnic benches. In the meantime, Kash and Steph Ducat decided it was time for another musical gazebo - moved it all the way down to the maze area...so down the hill, through narrow paths with nettles, below cables for the play ground swing and some low trees. We also moved tables, setup some massive metal signs for posters. moved chairs and put some weights down to keep the tents/gazebos in place. We will be back later today to undo all this.

On London's west-side, Ms C was under attack. Her garden, more specifically. The Sharks on either side were neglecting their gardening duties, meaning that their vegetation was encroaching into her garden. She was very displeased. She took pride in the appearance of her garden and despite being too old to look after it now, Ms C made sure that others maintained it well.

Ms C was worried for the health of the Jet's foot soldiers who came to fight her corner. It was a sweltering afternoon, but the Jets were ready and Ms C's garden was actually pleasantly shady. Velma went to the south side to fight the common ivy that was growing through the fence, while Riff set up on the north side where Persian ivy was growing over the top of the barrier and onto her shed roof. Choppers at the ready, the Jets fought methodically to remove the Shark ranks from Ms C's lawn, clearing them out by the end of the task.

Ms C was fair when it came to territory. She didn't want the Sharks on her turf and she didn't want Jet equipment bothering the Sharks either. At the back of her garden, a trellis had veered into neighbouring land and she wanted to do right by reeling it back in. Riff went into the neutral territory of the back alley to see what could be done. He found some branches blocking the trellis' return which were quickly removed and some screws that weren't doing anything. A trip for tools found a Phillips screwdriver and the screws were put into action, straightening the trellis up.

Ms C should be safe for a while, until the next rumble shakes things up again.

Today's visit to Care4Calais provided a lot of variety, with plenty of different jobs to work through. There was variety in the location too, almost, as the GoodGymers were supposed to meet at a storage unit, then a last minute change had them unexpectedly climbing back up the hill to the Care4Calais HQ.

Once in the right place, Kash and Sevan started outside (in the shade, thankfully), on a fold out table adding socks to boxes and boxes full of pre-made clothing packs. They came out of the car, were socked up, then went straight back in. Getting them back in involved a complicated game of Tetris for one person. 😅

Moving to the cool of indoors, there were a handful of new requests to fulfil, with many of them needing shoes. Shoes are constantly moving around Care4Calais' on-site storage, so task owner Tamzin often needs to explain the new system. This time, boxes were perched on top of other boxes in a corner and there were a lot of used running shoes. Kash was on the hunt for some size 11s and could only find some New Balance with all sizing labels rubbed clean. Hopefully they're the right size for the recipient. 🤞

Next was a quick session of making extra large men's standard clothing packs, then onto sorting and sizing an big pile of men's donations. The same pile that had been left to one side last week as they focused on women's stock. Today, Sevan became the sizing model, as everyone tried to work out whether unlabelled clothes were small, medium or large.

Time flew by and Tamzin was happy to have all of the jobs on her list crossed off. For the GoodGymers that was rewarding too and it was great to spend 2 hours at an indoor task, away from the heat of the afternoon sun! 👌🌞

On a hot Saturday morning, Mike took two other Friends of Grove Farm: Portia and new joiner Aaron, and five GoodGymers: Josh, Maxime, Sevan, Steph and Kash, for an adventure in the ancient woodlands of Grove Farm. The daredevils cut through the thicket to make space for the tool trolley to pass through. Would all the paths be as overgrown? Last month Friends of Grove Farm cleared a wild footpath and were hoping to continue the efforts with a bigger, GoodGym-infused group.

It was quite a shock to see two employees of Greener Ealing (Ealing Council's contractors) pressing through the paths with powerful petrol-fueled machinery, leaving open, wide paths in a matter of minutes. What would take us the whole Saturday session for those two was a piece of cake! Slightly discombobulated (as we have never seen GEL working in the same areas as volunteers in Grove Farm), we waited for Mike to make contact with the unexpected competition. The guys from GEL didn't seem to know anything about the planned volunteers' activity at the paths and didn't need help ravaging the overgrowth.

When asked for plan B, Mike took us to a hedge we had tackled last time in September 2024. The plan was to open the sightlines behind the hedge and prevent nefarious behaviours as Mike put it. While others happily clung to their chosen shears and loppers, Maxime volunteered to pick up the litter. Kash disappeared in the front, clearing the way with a hedge trimmer until she encountered a litter hotspot, which Josh immediately helped tidy up. Steph Sevan, Portia and Aaron razed the shrubs next to the hedge and built a dead hedge out of the trimmings.

When Mike mentioned an abandoned bike hiding in the nearby meadow, Josh, Sevan and Kash sensing an adventure, rushed to scout the field. To their surprise, the vehicle wasn't yet another dumped lime bike, but a crashed delivery moped! After noting the number plates, the trio took it towards the road for the council to collect.

Missed this month's adventure? Sign up for the next conservation day at Grove Farm in July here!

Tonight's Mr G's trademark shopping workout involved a number of static holds and practising a fine dose of patience:

• queuing in Waitrose to a single cashier accepting cash;
• waiting for assistance at automated checkout when the scales at the till went berserk;
• queuing for customer service to claim Mr G's £10 change which the till refused to issue (what an attitude!).

On such hot evenings, keeping my cool was a perfect alternative to Friday night fever!