November's Three Pigeons signature task tonight with a jog, a workout and lots of GoodGym energy going into the riverside plots we take care of for Richmond Council.

This evening we were joined by Hannah, celebrating a milestone 10th GoodGym task with a visit to Richmond 🥳 Meeting at the Tap, five of us set about a very necessary warm-up as November stretched its cooler arms out to pull us into the night! JP and Monika then set off on a brisk walk along the high street while Hannah, Kash and Liz set off across Richmond Green, discussing the benefits of 'jeffing'. A planned mix of running and fast walking, it can help ease joint impact, enable runners to cover longer distances and has the added benefit of getting to take in the lovely riverside views more too!

At Buccleuch Arcade things were looking good after Saturday's task there, perfect surroundings for a 10 minute bodyweight workout on the lawn. Those who didn't want to join headed straight to the Three Pigeons plot with tools to start some robust weeding, litter-picking and cutting back. When the whole group joined together it was, as always, amazing what eight sets of energetic hands can get done in 45 minutes as a huge Hop plant was removed, a bag of rubbish was plucked from the plants, the border was freed from weeds and a general sweep-up left the plot looking cared for.

Just time for a group photo with the floodlights on before we all scattered back into the night for hot dinners!

We visit our sponsored plot on the first Saturday and second Monday of every month, we would love you to join us!

The mission Sevan and Kash had signed up for was advertised as cutting back a garden ahead of Bonfire Night. Unfortunately, no GoodGymers were available before 5 November, or even the following Saturday, when Bonfire Night would likely be celebrated. The task eventually went ahead on Sunday.

Mission Control had prepared Sevan and Kash for the eventuality of not having any tools on hand. That scenario materialised when Mr T announced that he had neither equipment nor bags for the garden waste. While the task was supposed to focus on the overgrown front garden, dotted with brambles, rumours had it that tools could once be found in a shed in the back garden. Unfortunately, Mr T thought the back garden was completely inaccessible and didn't encourage the GoodGymers to try that route. Sevan and Kash had two choices: admit defeat and back off, or use their hands. They chose the latter.

Luckily, both had their bramble gloves with them and started pulling out thorny plants and snapping sycamore saplings. For the thicker brambles that they couldn't pull out by the roots, they resorted to good old-fashioned Stone Age tools. Sharp-edged rocks may be inferior to a pair of secateurs, but they're equally deadly against brambles in the hands of a determined GoodGymer.

Halfway through the task, by which point the front garden already looked much better (although the waste couldn't be swept up and bagged), Sevan and Kash encountered Mr T's neighbour. The neighbour explained the challenges posed by Mr T's back garden and took Kash on a tour to show her what it looked like from the neighbouring house's first-floor window. It was basically a monster of a bramble forest, untouched for three years, bulging against the fence on the verge of collapsing into the neighbour's garden.

The GoodGymers decided to borrow the neighbour's shears and use the last 30 minutes of the session to convince Mr T to let them investigate his back garden and see the jungle first-hand. And a jungle it was! There was certainly no way to guarantee making it Bonfire Night-proof, even if three sessions had taken place in the previous week!

Behind the back door in the kitchen, the first thing they discovered was vines hanging down the entire length of the stairs to the garden. Just past the entrance, Sevan and Kash spotted a box of tools under a cover. The roof wasn't technically a shed, and the protruding handles of the tools looked too good to be true. The GoodGymers were right not to get their hopes up too high.

All the tools were covered in rust. The loppers moved without needing WD-40, but had a big gap between the blades, which rendered them unusable. The shears wouldn't close, and the pruning shears wouldn't open. In the tools department, the GoodGymers were back to square one. Sevan found a rusty saw in the toolbox and pressed on, hacking away at the brambles and vines as best he could, while Kash took the neighbour's shears and ventured forward, cutting a narrow corridor through the brambles along the fence to see if she could make it as far as the mythical shed or the back fence.

Kash made it quite far into the jungle, stopping about two metres before the end of the garden. She could make out the back wall or fence behind the brambles in front of her. There was also a shape on the much more overgrown left-hand side, but she couldn't cut through the old, thick brambles with the shears. Whether the mythical shed had fully collapsed, and whether there were any tools inside, remains a mystery.

Mr T's jungle is one of those gardens in the GoodGym world that may look insurmountable, but Sevan and Kash believed that, with enough people helping across multiple sessions and the neighbour's support with tools, a difference could be made. The Gunpowder Plot may have failed, but the plan to tackle Mr T's garden was still very much a work in progress.

After Ms M's partner passed away a few years ago and after needing to evacuate her house, both of their belongings were returned to a storage room that was piled high. Kash and Sevan arrived to help Ms M find precious photo albums that she thought were hiding somewhere in that room.

Initially, Ms M didn't sound very sure about what was important for her to find, then paperwork came to mind, quickly followed by a blue and a red photo album. After asking for more details of what the albums looked like, Kash and Sevan started the hunt, searching high and low, in boxes and on shelves. Soon and blue and brown albums were spotted on a high shelf. The blue was a hit and the (reddy) brown a miss, so the search went on.

Finding the photo albums and other folders of photos triggered more memories. Ms M remembered that there should be a framed photo of her partner. The best one that Ms M had ever taken, she said. A new hunt started for photo frames. A few were found with portraits of the couple, not the solo portrait that Ms M had in her mind.

As the room was packed, Kash and Sevan began reorganising to keep similar things together. Sevan took care of finding lost CDs, DVDs and books to group them on the same shelves. Kash arranged Ms M's partner's artwork. With bright and colourful paintings, fabrics, canvases and animal sculptures all over the room, she found clear spaces to stack them up.

At the last minute, Ms M remembered about the computer equipment that she used to have. Luckily, Kash and Sevan already knew where that was hiding. With no clear surfaces to put them onto though, that would be a job for next time as well as finding that red photo album.

Very little was disposed of during the mission and still, the corner of the room where the GoodGymers were working looked remarkably neater than at the start. Ms M too was happy that everything was better organised at the end of the session.

After arriving at their first task on a North London mission day out, Ealing GoodGymers Sevan and Kash were greeted by Ms G's brother, who travelled to his sister's earlier in the morning to support the task. He used to help her regularly with the garden. After battling his own health issues, his ability to tackle physical jobs deteriorated, leaving him in a state every active person finds difficult to come to terms with.

While Sevan and Kash got into the gardening task, Ms G's brother kept them company and made their morning brighter with a good chat. The GoodGymers learned that he used to volunteer for Age UK and was a big believer in the what goes around comes back philosophy.

Sevan and Kash removed weeds and turned over soil in two overgrown flower beds, pruned a tree, pulled out bindweed, and started on moss scraping, while the beneficiary's brother helped them sweep and bag the green waste.

Ms G came outside to see the progress and later the results of the work and was very appreciative of GoodGym's help. Both siblings were grateful for the transformation that had taken place in only 90 minutes.

It's a miracle. It's like two angels coming to help us! - Ms G's brother.

What a fantastic start to a Sunday - a morning spent supporting a couple of really lovely people!