Sevan and Kash would have thought that a GoodGym intervention a year ago would discourage, or at least slow down, the bramble growth in Ms A's garden. They were wrong! This year, the blackberries behind the corner of the garden had grown even taller and thicker.

Not deterred by the return of the vicious spiky weeds, the two GoodGymers rolled up their sleeves and put on the thick, bramble-proof gloves. Kash decided not to use the shears that Ms A considered very blunt and instead chopped her way towards the house wall using a good pair of loppers.

Meanwhile, Sevan raked up the trimmings, cut them into smaller pieces with secateurs and packed them into green bags. He then had a round of strimming - with the same ominous strimmer as in 2025 - targeting the grass that had survived the competition with the brambles.

The three green waste bags could barely contain the volume of cuttings, so Sevan and Kash resorted to their usual stomping and dancing in the bags. Ms A was very grateful for the help, as she'd been in a lot of pain and hadn't been able to keep on top of her garden maintenance. Another Sunday afternoon well spent!

GoodGym Ealing's visit to Care4Calais today brought some pleasant surprises. There was a little more space in the stock room after clothes packs had been handed out and some less used items had gone to storage. That made it much easier to find and put away clothes.

The team today split into sorting donations and getting packs ready for new requests, with Kash focused on new women's donations. There were plenty of clothes to check and size. Kash also found some interesting and unusual items, including:

• Impressive and uncomfortable looking golden heels
• A large donation of clutch bags
• A portable DVD player, along with some holiday home videos

Sevan was working with task owner Tamzin to get packs ready for recipients. With no standard packs ready to add to, every request had to be started from scratch and this time there were a number of husband and wife requests.

As well as the usual men's clothing requests, Sevan was dispatched to find some summery women's clothes and was asked to be generous. Light trousers, dresses and skirts were easy to find. Every top he pulled from the boxes had long sleeves though. A legacy of donations from older, colder times. After a lot of rummaging, vests and cheerful short sleeves were discovered and used to complete the requests.

Another session with Care4Calais is planned for later this month, so sign up here to help out.

Earlier in the week, Ealing GoodGymers had been struck by the news of Acton junior parkrun's cancellation on Sunday due to the Eid in the Park celebrations. Sevan and Kash quickly scrambled to find an alternative morning activity, as a lie-in sounded far too boring. That search led them 6 km from Ealing to Wembley, where the two ran on Sunday to visit Mr F and his wife as early as 9 am.

The older couple needed support with garden maintenance, particularly removing weeds from the edges of a paved path and along the fence line. Mr F, who is due to celebrate his 90th birthday this month, was still able to mow the lawn on a warm day when he's feeling well, but weeding had become too strenuous for him.

With a selection of tools from Mr F's shed - some of them more unusual than those typically seen at GoodGym missions - Sevan and Kash got to work. Sevan, who tackled the brambles and thick-stemmed weeds along the wire fence, transitioned from precise secateurs to a fearsome slasher and finally a heavy-duty adze.

Kash, whose task was to remove all the weeds from the edges of the path, had a chance to try a new tool: a weed puller, and kept twisting it clockwise throughout the whole mission. The results were stunning: a neat stretch of bare soil on each side of the paved walkway. Mr F was delighted to see the path again, free from the encroaching overgrowth.

The GoodGymers had just enough time to dispose of the garden waste in the green bin, filling it to the brim. They then ran back to Ealing for their next task of the day, conquering Hanger Hill for the second time that morning.

Standing outside Ms C's flat, Kash and Sevan wondered if any gardening would happen today as the weather was quite grim. They rang the bell twice, then called to find out that Ms C was on a bus that was stuck in traffic. After a bit of a pause, everyone ended up in the right place in South Ealing, ready to start the mission.

As suspected, planting wasn't top priority today. It was number 2 on the list. Most important for Ms C was to continue moving clothes that were in her shed into the flat, where they'd be sorted and donated as part of her decluttering efforts. Kash and Sevan had moved around half of the bags 6 weeks ago and Ms C thought there were only a few bags left. That didn't sound right to Sevan...

Peeking into the shed refreshed Kash and Sevan's memories. There were still lots of clothes bagged up there. Fourteen laundry bags actually, which took up quite a lot of space. That didn't scare Ms C and she still wanted them to be relocated. Before they started, she asked the GoodGymers to be careful with her new kitchen floor as she was keen to not get it muddy given the weather.

Operation Relocation began and the first laundry bags of clothes were stacked up high in one corner of the kitchen until they came close to toppling over. There were still bags left in the shed, so they needed a plan B. Ms C asked for the rest to be placed around the kitchen on the floor, so Kash and Sevan gave her an alternative new floor covering made of laundry bags and clothes.

With the bags moved, at the end of the session Ms C said that she'd like to plant some bulbs and seeds in her garden. The planting season for tulips is long gone and with so little time left, it was decided to leave the planting for another time.

There was a big group this month for the walk over Horsenden Hill to the Feeding Ealing site. It started out dry and got more wet the closer that the group got to their destination, with umbrellas popping up and waterproofs being worn. Given the threatening grey skies, everyone was happy when Joseph said that they'd be working inside, in the polytunnel. On a day like today, Joseph had no desire to get soaked and he didn't want anyone else to get wet either.

Walking through the site, Joseph pointed out the changes since GoodGym's visit last month, with the Dudhi plants being well established in the muddy holes that were dug last month. Inside the polytunnel, there was a lot of new growth too, with tomatoes, peppers and more shooting up in the raised beds and some exotic beans climbing up the walls.

It was the tomatoes that Joseph needed help with today. As they grew, they needed to each have a bamboo cane that they were tied to for support. Kash, Angela and Maxime grabbed string and scissors, cutting it into lengths for everyone to get tying. Part way through, Joseph came to the team with a with a new task and each person could choose the one they found the most fun:

1. Tying the tomato plants to stakes
2. Dismantling old garden furniture that was inefficiently filling the skip

Maxime, Angela and Delphine found their happiness in placing stakes and binding the tomato plants to them. Steph, Kash, Kaja and Sevan on the other hand went for destruction. They grabbed the wicker chairs out of the skip and got kicking, stamping, twisting, sawing and pick-axing. Anything they could to turn the bad 3D seating into good 2D seating that would neatly stack back in the skip.

With both of Joseph's jobs completed, the rain got heavier and everyone took cover in the polytunnel. While they waited out the heaviest of the rain, Joseph told everyone about last year's harvest and the plans for this year. He encouraged everyone to come back at harvest time to pick some crops and make their stomachs happy. That's the most important thing in life, according to Joseph.

The session wrapped up early and team GoodGym headed home or onto their next tasks. As they left the site, the rain stopped and the sun beamed down... for a few minutes at least, until clouds returned overhead.

A week of turbulent weather at the beginning of June left GoodGymers wondering what Saturday would bring to the Horsenden Farm session. Delightful sunshine or dreadful rain? It turned out that neither rain nor shine was winning in the morning - what awaited us was overcast and gusts of wind, but the storm held off during the volunteering session.

Among the 11 GoodGymers at the farm were two new joiners: Anal and Ana, both very enthusiastic and keen to roll their sleeves up, no matter the task - what a great attitude to have at the first session!

Before the start of the task, Elsa from Friends of Horsenden Farm gave everyone an inspiring talk about the farm's history, from its humble origins as a derelict site to a thriving community space and a nature reserve - all brought to life by a decade of persistent work by a group of dedicated volunteers.

Elsa had two jobs for us today: first, making sure the farm plots have a source of homemade compost ready to use, and second, creating a new seating area for gatherings. Anastasiia, Amy, Delphine, Iram and Kaja have moved two huge piles of compost we had constructed in May, then combined another two (also last month's creations) into a single, tall heap.

Meanwhile, Anal, Ash, Kash, Maxime, Sevan and Steph Ducat moved heavy - and I mean heavy! - logs to a secret woodland area behind the sheds. They used a range of techniques from individual and paired carrying, through rolling to wheelbarrowing, to transport the timber blocks to a clearance in the woods. Later, we all enjoyed a break on the self-made seats in that truly magical place.

"I feel like a forest fairy here!" - Iram.

Although that job was really tough, the team still had some energy and over an hour to spare before the pizza o'clock. They decided to join the composting team and, based on Elsa's instructions, built a new, massive pile of fertiliser, layering fresh manure with woodchip - the famous lasagna technique!

The visit to the farm was a great opportunity to see some of the animal residents. No cats and cows this time, but we got to meet the two goats, a family of the rare breed of red-coloured Tamworth piglets, and harvest mice babies. We had to keep quiet when viewing the latter and refrain from taking photos in the nursery.

The harvest mouse is Britain's smallest rodent and has been recently reintroduced to Horsenden Hill and adjoining areas. To enable this rewilding endeavour (which even caught the attention of Sir David Attenborough!), the mice had to be brought from far corners of the UK. That's why some of the tubs with the rodents were labelled with descriptions like 1 pregnant Scottish lady.

The other highlights of the day were the introduction of a new pizza type, the creamy Jean-Claude, and a wedding reception, which pushed all the pizza lovers outside the main yard. We decided not to crash the party with our manure-scented boots.

If you think that sounds like a fun thing to do on a Saturday morning, join us in July at Horsenden Farm!

On a pleasant, dry Friday morning, GoodGym Ealing held a special session with an unusually early start at 7:45 am! Harvey, Steph, Sevan and Kash changed their morning routines to make their way to an industrial estate in Acton to visit a vibrant, green oasis hidden between warehouses and repair shops.

Originally, the session was arranged to help the six wildflower beds in Acton survive – and thrive! – during the recent May heatwave. Should it come as a surprise that climate change caused a sudden change in the weather? After the hailstorms, thunderstorms and a decent amount of rain mid-week, watering the beds in the morning was no longer a priority. There was still an impact to be made, though!

The beds, now displaying a range of amazing, colourful flowers and attracting pollinators, could, if left unattended, turn into far less biodiverse ecosystems. That's why we decided to remove the weeds known to be bullies in the plant world, ready to take over space from other species – among them a couple of sycamore saplings - and also tidy up the dead grasses.

Why did we decide to travel to Acton so early, though? We were visited by BBC Radio London reporter Nisha, who had already completed one volunteering session that day – at the Thames beach in Hammersmith. Nisha not only handled a live broadcast and produced material for other platforms but also found time to roll up her sleeves and join our task – one of her five volunteering sessions that day (even our Ealing heroes don't go to such extremes!). How impressive is that!

Four minutes of fame and three sacks of collected weeds later, the team dispersed to run or walk back home, then started the rest of their Fridays with so much already accomplished!