Sunny Saturday and we returned to Western road urban garden. Ash welcomed the early birds Richard who cycled from Southall park after his parkrun ,Sophie who walked and Steph Ducat who walked along the canal.Ash debriefed the crew and the the Goodgym Ashley arrived. we split into 2 smalls teams and then Shubham arrived with Hestia who struggled to find the garden. They joined the 2 teams. Welcome Hestia for your first Goodgym community mission. Two teams but the same goal : level the ground at 2 different areas to then install the water tanks. Sophie, Richard and Hestia were sorting stones/rocks and gathering them in the square hole which had a wooden frame. They were braking the bigger rocks to fit in the frame and no they were not playing rock, paper, scissors!! On the other side behind the loos, near the house where previously Goodgym cleared space for a water tank, the 3 other musketeers had to level the ground for slabs and the tank which will be at a higher level. The team had to bring the level down, get rid of all metal items in the soil and also created a nice path alongside the polytunnel. The spirit level was the key tool today and the sun also kept the goodgymers spirit levels high. next phase will be to cement both frames and install the water tanks on top. The other team also did some clearing of weeds in front of the polytunnel. We all enjoyed frsh water, oranges and cookies at the end of the session.

After the HANGOT green task at Osterley Lock we wandered over to No. 6 Coffee for a well deserved break. We were slightly dubious of the choice to toast banana bread and the milkiness of the milkshake (they seemed to take the name quite literally) but a lovely time was had by all. It was great to properly welcome our newest Goodgymers, Shubham and Purva.

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.