A year after their last volunteering session at Our Lady of the Visitation Primary School in Greenford, a chance encounter in central Ealing brought Team GoodGym back to find out what had happened to the planned wildlife reserve. Last year a veg patch and the pond were well established, with the rest of the space still needing to be cleared and planted.

Returning today, Rachel and her keen pupils had been busy. They had:

• Completed the woodchip path
• Grown some beautiful sunflowers
• Planted wildflower seeds to create a Nectar Highway
• Created a hedge-y area to attract hedgehogs
• Been studying the lifecycle of hundreds of newts in their pond

Lots of discoveries for curious minds.

Other things hadn't changed from last year. The path through the wildlife reserve had again become a bramble highway. This was not the type of highway the school wanted to encourage. Most of the brambles were rooted in the flowerbeds off the path, so while some of the team got chopping, others dove into the dried out beds to dig out any roots that they could.

Therese, Maria, Kash and Steph chopped and dug their way through the whole session, clearing the space. As the bramble levels dropped off, Amy, Scott and Sevan moved onto task 2, emptying the soil from giant planters. Task owner Rachel saved the plants that had survived the summer, then the planters were dragged across the playground. The soil was dug out and placed in ton bags until they were light enough to lift and tip what was left. Six planters later, they were done.

Everyone enjoyed their session at the school, with some marvelling at how much space the school had available. Rachel was really impressed with what the large team achieved and she still has big plans and projects in the pipeline, so we could be back again, sooner rather than later.

"Thank you so much. Huge difference." - Rachel

Forget box breath! Jason from Southall Transition taught us pilates breathing techniques to help us engage our core and more effectively use the fork to break up the ground for weeding.

We meticulously weeded a number of beds, ready for brassicas to be planted and then watered the other areas which are already full of plants, on their way to becoming a food forest!

There had been much chatter about the friendly foxes who frequent the allotment and as we were packing up they came over to bid use thank you and farewell. A lovely way to spend a sunny autumn afternoon!

For the second week in a row, GoodGym Ealing were volunteering at Acton Junior parkrun. Today was bright, sunny and chilly compared to the mist of last week when Steph was here.

Unusually, all 5 of the volunteers this week had chosen to marshal. It was Breda's first time here and everyone was too busy chatting to explain the course to her, except to point to the "crazy shapes" dodecahedrons that would be her marshal point, leaving her a bit unprepared.

It was another bumper number of finishers. Not as many as last week. 96 is a lot for Acton Juniors recently though and those numbers have gone up a lot since we've been volunteering there.

There were lots of happy children today and one enjoyed themself so much that 2km wasn't enough. They wanted to head back to the roundabout and go around the course again. They were really having fun, which was great to see.

Chilly but sunny Saturday and I cycled 9km to Mr T for our weekly chat. I was greeted by Mr Skeleton in the lounge 😂😂. Mr T is still waiting for his other Halloween items and hopefully they will arrive next week as he can't wait to decorate his flat.

We had our usual 60 minute chat before I cycled again in the streets of Ealing.

October's session with HANGOT took the team back to Osterley Lock, like last month. Unlike last month, the aim was to get the whole orchard, not only the front, to look tidy and business-like.

While the HANGOT volunteers scythed the open areas with tall grasses and burdock, the GoodGymers grabbed loppers and shears to clear big patches of brambles. For the first half of the session everyone was chopping away, making piles of spiky cuttings all over the orchard. Later on, Steph, Lena and Kash stuck to their destroying ways, while Scott and Sevan raked and pitchforked their way around the orchard, moving everyone's cuttings onto an ever growing compost heap.

By the end of the session, the dead or invasive plants had been cleared and for the foreseeable future, the orchard at Osterley Lock won't need more maintenance. Well, at least until spring arrives and the whole cycle starts again. 🌸☀️🍂❄️

Four Ealing GoodGymers, having stopped for a coffee after a morning session at one of the HANGOT community orchards, walked to Blondin Park to tackle... another orchard! Two guests from other West London areas joined the task. Maxime made the trip to Ealing from GoodGym Hounslow, while JP cycled all the way from Richmond.

The team continued working in the park's orchard, using pickaxes, spades and rakes to remove a circle of grass around the fruit trees, making space for a layer of woodchip to be spread at our future Tuesday night session.

Saturday afternoon turned out to be a great time for wildlife spotting at Blondin Park! We uncovered an underground wasp nest between tree roots — and quickly retreated! At the base of another fruit tree, we discovered something even more exciting: a slow worm, also known as a deaf adder! Despite its name, it was neither a worm nor a snake, but a pretty harmless legless lizard — way more amicable than those feisty wasps!

While focusing on grass removal around the trees, we also dealt with a few tree suckers and blackthorn shoots — removing only those that were in the way of the fruit trees and leaving any sloes untouched. We haven't saved the sloes for gin, but left them for the animals looking for food over the winter.

The Blondin Park session traditionally finished with a round of delicious hot chocolate in the pavilion, kindly provided on the house by our fantastic task owner, Linda! We're looking forward to more hot chocolate as the evenings get colder — and, of course, to mulching the fruit trees we've been preparing! Sign up now to join Steph on that adventure!