It's been eight months since Sevan's and Kash's last visit to Mrs E and her husband - a mission featuring apple collection, getting soaked and watching Wimbledon during the worst downpour.

The first task for the elderly couple this season was far less eventful: cutting the grass, weeding pots and flowerbeds, and scraping moss. This time, Mrs E's husband wasn't well and couldn't come out to the garden to join the gardening team, but Mrs E worked alongside GoodGymers throughout the session, directing Sevan and Kash, cutting dead rosemary, and sweeping the cuttings. The most unexpected event of the session was mowing the thick grass, which turned out to be, judging by the scent, unwanted wild garlic.

Sevan and Kash finished the day of GoodGymming with a 5km run back to Ealing, enjoying the sight of cherry blossoms on the streets and many other trees blooming in Boston Manor and Blondin Parks.

On another HANGOT day, the sun came out to play. That was good news for the team as they would find out later. With most of the group present, the HANGOT and GoodGym volunteers took a long walk along the Grand Union Canal to Osterley Lock Orchard, where the fruit trees needed a good mulch and dead plants needed to be cleared.

The team put their 4 wheelbarrows to work, with Ashley, Steph and Kash joining HANGOT volunteer Mas in filling wood chip into wheelbarrows and shuttling it to the orchard at Osterley Lock, where Iram, Sophie and Sevan were ready to remove weeds, spread the wood chip and chop back any dead plants.

"I have a small challenge if you'd like it."
"Can GoodGym take mulch to the terrace?"
"It's at the top of the hill, so we don't often go there." - Hillary

That did sound like a challenge. None of the GoodGymers had been to the terrace before though, so no one knew where the hill was how how difficult it would be to get to the top. At that moment, Shubham and Purva arrived for their first GoodGym task, joining the others to power wheelbarrows up the muddy path to the sun-drenched orchard up the hill. Welcome to you both! 👋

With mulching of the terrace trees complete, everyone gathered to celebrate 🎊 Iram's 50th good deed 🎊. The only snag was that Iram's epic battle with burdock had left her covered in burrs and she needed some emergency hairdressing, expertly performed by Ash. Iram achieved the "black belt" sash under a year since she started attending tasks, then writing creative reports, leading tasks and finally promoting GoodGym through the videos that she creates and shares online. That's some journey. The coveted black GoodGym t-shirt will be heading Iram's way soon. Congrats Iram! 🥳

Everyone returned to the main orchard for some speed mulching and chopping in the last few minutes of the session. Then, it was time for the group photo and a walk through Elthorne Park to a local coffee shop for social and some refreshments.

We'll be back helping HANGOT in April for our regular monthly session. Sign up here.

Four grown up GoodGymers and one MiniGymer met at St Margarets Open Space to pick the litter as a part of LAGER Can's Great British Spring Clean, a bold initiative aiming to pick all 146 parks in the Ealing Borough over the second half of March. 45 minutes was more than enough to tidy up the pledged space, so the team cleared the path (and its surroundings) leading to the Fox pub as well. Well done everyone, big or little rubbish fighters!

Three happy Goodgymmers (Lily, Sarah and Sevan) braved the howling winds and spent a solid hour and a half clearing, cleaning and organising the outdoor toy shed at Walthamstow Toy Library, in the hope that preparation for warmer climes might lure back the spring sunshine! The task looked a little daunting at first glance, but we tackled it admirably with all hands on deck, together with Mel from the Toy Library who was standing in for Helen this evening. Buckets, spades, rakes and water toys were organised, footballs gathered into boxes and stacked on shelves in the shed, while rocking horses, scooters and pedal cars were stationed neatly outside, ready for action. Now all we need is some sunshine so that the Toy Library's lovely little customers can have some outside play time. The newly organised toy shed will certainly make all the resources on offer much easier for little hands to access. Well done GGWF - another excellent job done - and a very big thank you to Sevan, who trekked all the way from GG Ealing to give us some support - that's dedication!