After experiencing a no-show beneficiary at their earliest morning mission, Sevan’s and Kash's day became a bit fluid. They have rescheduled and completed a task in Blackheath and found themselves in a café in Lewisham, discussing when to take a train to Victoria to get to their last mission, which they also wanted to start earlier than planned. The answer: all trains were equally boring - how about a 9.5 km run? That's what they decided to do, exploring areas of South London along the way.

Miss M didn't mind having the GoodGymers show up earlier and had her donations for the charity shop ready in the landing when Sevan and Kash arrived. This time, there was only one donation drop run for two pairs of GoodGym hands, as the lady hadn't gotten enough boxes to pack up her unwanted books yet.

Sevan and Kash carried four bags with clothes, a hot water bottle, a pair of slippers, and a couple of teddy bears through a familiar route to the FARA charity shop in Pimlico. Once donations were received, the last thing to do was to bring the large bag back to Miss M, enabling more charity shop runs in the future. The GoodGymers set off for a very short jog, scaring a group of street pigeons on their way, which triggered a memory of Sir David Attenborough's film about wildlife in London they had recently watched.

I feel like a peregrine falcon! - Kash.
Not like a five-year-old? - Sevan.

With the last task of the day complete, the two decided to keep an eye out for future tasks for Miss M, as decluttering space and donating no longer needed items feels particularly rewarding, even when done for someone else.

Today's mission for Mrs P had Kash & Sevan entering something resembling an art gallery or museum. There were historic or unusual artefacts everywhere related to her family's interesting past and their move to the UK many years ago.

"Every space in my flat is used" - Mrs P

The original task for the mission sounded more mundane than the once elegant surroundings where it took place. Mrs P's roller blind kept falling down and with a streetlight right outside her window, it made it difficult for Mrs P to get to sleep at night.

After moving pictures and relics to make way for a step ladder, Kash climbed up to investigate what was going wrong. Sevan joined her, standing on the window sill and there didn't seem to be any obvious problem with the blind or the brackets if used gently. The blind was tested over and over and it worked perfectly, leaving everyone confused but hopeful that the problem had resolved itself.

With a lot of time left until their next mission, the GoodGymers asked if there was anything else that they could help with. One of the lights in the stairwell wasn't working, so they changed the bulb and solved the mystery of the light switches on each floor. Then Mrs P pointed at the wooden flooring in her kitchen and said that, as much as she liked and trusted her handyman of many years, he'd messed up with the floor and she wanted to remove the boards.

Ripping up a kitchen floor was a first for Kash & Sevan during a GoodGym task. The floor didn't look great though, so they agreed to pull it up to leave the original flooring underneath. Sevan took off the kick plates from the kitchen cabinets then prised up the first few boards. Kash took over, picking up planks and hoovering dust while Sevan taped the boards up into manageable bundles.

Mrs P's earlier statement about the space in her flat was pretty accurate. There was no hoarding or clutter, but everything had it's place and every centimetre of space had its purpose. Where would the taped up boards go then? Sevan found space for the smaller ones behind the sofa and a corner space was allocated in the hallway for the longer boards to stand up temporarily until they could be collected and disposed of.

Mrs P was very impressed with GoodGym and how the team had solved so many issues for her. As a former runner, she once could have been a GoodGymer too. For the moment, her priority was to recover from a recent bout of pneumonia and will need support to help her achieve that.

Mr B needed his favourite sofa moved to the next room over to make space for his hospital bed. It would be moving away from his perfectly positioned TV and into the family room.

After clearing the way by helping Mr B off the couch, moving small tables and making sure Mr B wasn't in the path of operation sofa move (he was quite curious about the goings on), Kash lifted one side of the sofa to stand it on its end. Sevan went first through the doors, guiding it through the 2 door frames and 2 left turns later it was in the right room.

Kash gently dropped the 3 seater back to the ground and the pair pushed it against the wall. Job done and they were in and out in a few minutes. The whole thing only took slightly longer than Sevan spent removing and re-lacing his manure covered shoes from an earlier task at a farm 🐄💩.

The first session of the year at Feeding Ealing was chilly, despite taking place at the warmest part of the day. Joseph had a solution for the team, a task to keep them moving and keep them warm. The remnants of a large pile of wood chip and bark would be used to refresh the path into the community growing space.

Steph, Kash and Sevan got shovelling and wheelbarrowing the new path topper. Joseph took on the task of raking it into place, even though he'd recently injured his foot in the orchard. There was no convincing him otherwise.

"I can't sit and watch others work for me while I do nothing" - Joseph

Between the 4 of them, they completed the path in an hour, smoothing out the lumps and bumps of the dirt path underneath. That made the entrance to the growing space accessible to all, even those who are a bit unsteady on their feet.

With the hard work done and the GoodGym team being kept warm as promised, they needed something else to keep that feeling going once the task was complete. Joseph produced a thermos of water, some tea bags and 4 mugs to warm their fingers and stomachs while chatting about Joseph's big plans for 2026 and beyond at Feeding Ealing.

Happoo New Year! What's a better way to start a new chapter than to spend a chilly, but sunny morning at an urban farm, surrounded by nature and good company?

That's how our new joiners, David and Jemma, decided to begin their GoodGym adventure. Welcome and well done for showing up today!

The Horsenden session is a great reason to add some exercise to the day. Iram cycled, Sevan and Kash ran, and Danny and Kat walked a whopping 3 hours from the neighbouring borough to get to Horsenden Farm, setting off well before the sun was up. That's a true GoodGym-style dedication, rewarded by some fantastic nature sights and a wonderful sunrise along the way!

A total of ten GoodGymers, who made it to the session, were assigned two jobs by a Friend of Horsenden Farm, Nick, and they decided to split into teams.

Team Hay (or High?) included the tallest people, working at height. David, Danny and Ash were tasked with taking bunches of dried tree hay off hooks and piling them at the ground level to make them accessible for shorter farm volunteers.

Team Sandwich: Iram, Steph Ducat, Jemma, Thaiza, Kash, Kat and Sevan were assigned the job of making two giant sandwiches. They were first transporting green waste onto two piles of manure, creating a sort of "lettuce" layer, which would then be topped by more manure. The vision resembled a sandwich structure - and you know what kind of sandwich I'm talking about! 💩

In an attempt to prevent their fingers from freezing, the GoodGymers kept shovelling and wheelbarrowing until the green heap was gone. Ash, Danny and David, having completed their task, joined the unit just when it was going to be promoted from dealing with green waste to brown waste. A huge pile of brown matter was more than enough to complete the sandwiches and compress the veg waste into compost. But what to do with the rest of the poo heap? The short answer: move it to the poo mountain!

GoodGymers love a challenge, so without mucking about, and got right into a vigorous race with barrows to the top of the mountain. The ice on the ground was slippery, and despite running with wheelbarrows was off the table, a couple of people still slipped. Luckily, the falls didn't result in any bruises - merely with a little bit of brownness on clothes!

Digging the cow muck uncovered a real metropolis of invertebrates living in rather poo conditions. But their plight got even worse when the robins found out that the lunch was just served! Looking at the birds savouring fresh worms, the GoodGymers started feeling a bit peckish too, so they finished the task rapidly (but diligently!) and rushed to position themselves in the queue for the pizza, coffee and beer. As volunteers, they were allowed to use the indoor space at the Hayloft for their lunch - a real treat after two hours of work in the chilly weather!

If you'd like to join us next month, sign up now for the February session at Horsenden Farm. We are hoping to see you there!

For Ms K's third recent mission, what she needed was clear. To turn 3 flat IKEA boxes into a bed to sit alongside the 2 wardrobes that were built during her 2 previous missions. The new information however was that it was a storage bed with 2 drawers on each side, so that would take more time to build and it was the first time either Kash or Sevan were assembling a storage bed.

Over the next 90 minutes, screws were searched for, dowels were deliberated over and headboards were hammered in. Finally, the outer frame of the bed came together with no drawers built or slats in place yet to hold the mattress. On seeing the size of the bed, Ms K cursed as she realised she that she wouldn't be able to open the drawers if she continued with her IKEA bedroom design.

Ms K went back to the drawing board to see how she could move her furniture around or replace items to make everything fit. Maybe a large chest of drawers would need to go? Some new ideas were discussed and discarded, so Ms K will come up with a new plan before her next mission... and there may be even more flat pack furniture delivered that will need to be built!