Ms A of Ealing was anxious about the state of her back garden yet too unwell to take care of it. Back pain was to blame for stopping her from tackling the overgrown grass and brambles just after a few minutes of attempting to work. Two local GoodGymers, Sevan and Kash, came to the rescue. Ms A offered them water to cool down after their run and, of course, a set of tools:

• Strimmer - didn't have a guard (yikes!), so we shielded our bare legs with a green waste bag; the wire needed refitting only once (what a miracle!); by the end of the mission, we ran out of the line and, so with two minutes left, decided not to install a new one.
• Shears - Ms A warned us that those were dull; they did pretty well against the tall grass, though.
• Loppers - highly effective against brambles.
• Rake - perfect for... raking!
• Fork - hasn't been used - with so much to trim, there was no time to get to dig the roots out.
• Spade - as above.

The garden was large, so Sevan and Kash managed to bring two sections to an acceptable state, with a paved area leading to the neighbour's garden still needing more work. Ms A was delighted to see the transformation anyway.

"This is terrific! I'm ever so grateful." - Ms A.

Two Ealing GoodGymers, Sevan and Kash, were crossing borders again this Saturday afternoon, supporting GoodGym Hounslow for the second weekend in a row. After proving their worth by cutting trees with a bread knife, the duo felt unstoppable and ran 5km further west to test their skills against Ms H's patio.

Ms H's sister, Ms K, welcomed the two and offered them ice-cold water. What a relief after a run in the blazing sun! Ms K was the carer of her two sisters, both of whom were in poor health. Ms K's age and caring responsibilities left her without energy or time to tackle the back and front gardens of Ms H's house. That's why we have GoodGymers in this world!

The patio in the back garden was the priority, so Sevan and Kash took the challenge to clear all of the weeds in sight and sweep the mess into waste bags. Most of the weeds were easily pulled from between the slabs, except thistles and dandelions that needed a little bit of convincing to let go - a pair of shears was the best argument! The GoodGymers uncovered a colony of bindweed at the far end and dealt with it with utmost delight.

Ninety minutes was enough to finish the transformation of the back garden. The spectacular result surprised even Sevan and Kash themselves! Ms K then introduced the GoodGymers to her sisters, Ms H and Ms M. All three were very grateful for help and hoped to see the GoodGym team again (maybe to help with the front garden?).

Isleworth was the location of K&S Gardeners' first mission of the day. On arrival, it looked fairly simple as the grass in the small front garden needed mowing. K's sharp eyes identified some more jobs that needed attention, spotting some young trees growing on the boundary between the street and garden.

While K took control of the lawnmower - with upside down controls - and started the main task, S was ready to go to cut the trees and asked for some tools to use. While he waited for some secateurs or loppers to appear, Miss R's granddaughter appeared at the door and took an interest in the strangers, offering them her Fruit Shoot.

When Miss R's daughter came back with tools and black bags, she didn't bring loppers, nor a pair of secateurs. Instead, she handed S a bread knife. She explained it by saying that the granddaughter was getting too curious about the chopping tools, so the bread knife was safer all round 🤷‍♂️. The granddaughter asked why the strangers were allowed to use the knife and she wasn't and was told it was because "aunty and uncle" were older than her youthful 21 months 😂.

GoodGym breeds resourcefulness and and this was another one of those occasions. The GoodGymers had never use a bread knife to cut, well, anything as part of a mission. After finding the right technique, the knife was actually pretty good at cutting through the little saplings, struggling with anything more heavy duty. It also did a great job of slicing through the wall of tall grass growing around the wire fence and at edging the lawn.

With 2 very different tools, the pair made a big impact. Six trees were discovered and chopped, plus the grass was neatly trimmed, meaning that Miss R didn't need to worry about her front garden for a while.

On a hot, sunny Saturday, the June edition of the HANGOT workday took us to Elthorne Terraces Orchard (or the one "by the Bambi") to deal with unfair competition against fruit trees. Hemlock, brambles, nettles, burdock - we didn't want to see any of that around the orchard tree trunks. Another problem was caused by the fruit trees themselves - tree suckers and self-seeded saplings were stealing nutrients from the originally planted trees and had to be removed.

Six regulars from the HANGOT crew: Mirjam, Clive, Hilary, Magda, Chris and Brian were joined by four GoodGymers, making the team size a decent, round number! The towpath was a lovely route to get to the task. Penny walked to the session while Christos, Steph Ducat and Kash ran different distances to reach the orchard. Steph arrived early, as usual, and Mirjam put him on his favourite watering duty to keep him busy before others showed up.

Walking down the canal path towards Brentford, the GoodGymers saw a pair of swans with five cygnets. Clive said the bird couple had been trying to have babies for a long time, facing challenges like a flooded nest and soggy eggs, and, finally, was lucky to glide upstream with a line of their little ones between them. What a sight it was!

At Elthorne Terraces we saw more examples of nature thriving, such as a quince tree producing plenty of fruit! They weren't ripe yet, of course, but we learned where the quince spot was - a handy knowledge when the foraging season comes! Life does not always prevail - at Elthorne Terraces, we found out that one of the fruit trees had died, and we have been chosen to help it with its last journey. Christos sawed the tree, and Kash chucked its trunk into the bushes like a javelin. Farewell tree! May the circle of life make good use of your remains!

The summer is looking fantastic, and we want to take advantage of long days in June to help HANGOT more than once a month! Join us on Monday in a week's time for a work evening at the canalside orchards - sign up here!