Today's mission for Ms P had 3 key elements. Weeds, pears and poo. Only 2 of them could be squeezed into the pun in the report title though.

GoodGymers had been to help Ms P in the past, including Kash and Sevan a few years ago. Kash remembered that the garden looked simple, just 2 long flowerbeds at the sides and slabs in the middle, but it was deceptively time consuming to tidy up. She had a good memory 🧠.

There were a lot of weeds in the first flowerbed and at least they were easy to pull out. There was also a lingering scent of Eau de Catlogne, even if whatever the cats (or foxes) had done wasn't very visible. As they worked, Kash and Sevan chatted to Ms P, who was feeling a bit lonely as her son wasn't able to visit. Soon enough, they'd cleared the flowerbed and the slabs around it, so it was onto the next area.

It was on the other side of the back garden where the GoodGymers found the source of the eau-dor in the second flowerbed. Kash spent most of the time on this side scooping things out of the giant litter tray. The weeds in this bed were much deeper rooted, so more digging and time was needed to clear the same amount of space. The neighbour's pear tree also hung over the flowerbed, so there were semi-rotten pears to be speared with forks and disposed of with the weeds. Surprisingly, there were 2 undamaged pears that Ms P said that she wouldn't eat herself, so she offered them to Kash and Sevan at the end of the mission. Pearfect 👌.

A week ago, GoodGym Ealing celebrated winning the Team of the Year award from Southall Community Alliance, the organisation behind the Western Road Urban Garden. This Saturday morning was the perfect opportunity to live up to that title!

We arrived as a team of six, ready to take direction from Ash, who never disappoints when it comes to sharing a clear vision for what we want to achieve. The community day was also a chance to meet Natalie from SCA, who normally leads some of the mid-week sessions at the garden, and Harry, a new volunteer she recruited.

We also welcomed a new GoodGymer, Nadia, who chose Western Road as her first GoodGym experience. Great choice and fantastic work, Nadia!

Ash's vision today was to move the outer border of the veg patches further out to expand the growing space. The job included:

1. Clearing the nettles alongside the hedge along the fence
2. Removing the paving grids and the membrane underneath them
3. Tipping, raking and stomping on soil (donated by the police!) to raise the plot borders
4. Laying and pegging down a Terram membrane (apparently much more effective than the old one)
5. Laying the grids on top of the Terram

We managed to transform the border on two sides of the growing area and made a start on the third, which was a result worthy of the Team of the Year! By the way, Kash brought the trophy to Southall to present it to the wider team helping at WRUG, as this had been 100% a team achievement.

By the end of the session, Ash was pleased to list three outcomes that the dream team had completed:

1. Delineating the new border of the plots
   
2. Making the outer hedge more manageable
   
3. Expanding the food-growing space

It was a lovely day of teamwork and doing something good for the Southall community.

We're at Western Road again very soon – check out the sessions and come along: Community garden day - Tuesday morning and Tuesday afternoon!

After few weeks of missing the weekly shopping for Mr G, I faced a change in Sainsbury's layout and realised I'm not such an expert in Mr G's groceries anymore. The majority of his list hasn't changed though, so after learning how to navigate the updated store route, I could walk it with my eyes closed.

The shortage of baby potatoes didn't go unnoticed, but I was able to buy what British call "baking potatoes" - basically, larger potatoes. I also picked up a bigger bottle of milk for Mr G, which should last Mr G for a week, unspoilt.

I headed to checkout, where I dished out 40 pounds in coins. The till didn't choke even once. They must have improved the machines.

Back at Mr G's, the gentleman praised the new volunteer David, who had done a couple of shopping missions in my absence. Before heading back home, I revealed that the shopping visit to Chiswick Sainsbury's is always an opportunity for me to buy cheddar mini muffins, not available to me locally. I bragged about their irresistible flavour so much that I offered to share one with Mr G. He agreed it's a delightful light snack, so you may see it on his list next time!

The award-winning Ealing Half Marathon is one of the events of the year for runners and supporters in Ealing and across the country. Our group of walkers, wanderers, minstrels, travelers, joggers and runners gathered together for a key job ahead of this year's half on 27 September - advance notice signs of road closures. Yes, sooper dooper important for our supportive local residents to know what's happening on the day.

This was a carefully planned logistical enterprise, with weeks and months (well, minutes and hours) of high level project planning (well, some notes on Harvey's iPhone and jumping on the bus with a bag of signs). Two groups were formed, with members chosen for their specific skills mix after significant testing and modeling (well, the people standing together on one side at our meeting spot, and, erm, the people standing together on the other side at our meeting spot). It helped that we had a range of heights within our team because street furniture (esp. lamp posts) is our bread and butter. There was a slight suspicion that one group was competing with the other to get their share of signs put up first. Or was it that they wanted to get home in time to watch the football? Whatever.

A year out from the last time we fed cable ties together, you wouldn't believe how many different kinds of lamp posts there are! You might not actually care, but you would if the lamp post was too fat to get your cable tie around!

We guided around our section of the half marathon route as the sun set over the West Ealing tall towers (how romantic).

Before we finished, there was just time for Sevan to enact a culturally iconic Bob Dylan music video from 1965 (hence the title of this report). Then, like rolling stones, we blew in the wind, to head off and knock on the heaven's door we call home.

Some decluttering missions disguise themselves as tasks labelled simply as "bed move". This wasn't the case with an urgent mission Sevan and Kash had signed up for Sunday afternoon. It was quite the opposite: a furniture move mission camouflaged itself as "decluttering". Or rather - the task involved both decluttering and dismantling and relocating two divan beds. What a legendary scope! Luckily, the extended team for the job was equally legendary.

Mrs V's daughter, Ms G, arrived seconds before Sevan and Kash finished their run-walk from Pitshanger to Southall at the beneficiary's doorstep. Ms G introduced the GoodGymers to her mum and dad, and proceeded upstairs to show Sevan and Kash what needed to be done. The three devised a plan, with no guarantee that they could complete the whole endeavour in the time available.

Pack the clutter on the Alpha bed in the Alpha room and move the bags downstairs. Dismantle the Alpha bed, take it downstairs and take it outside of the house. Hoover the floor in the Alpha room. Pack the clutter on the Beta bed in the Beta room and move the bags and boxes downstairs. Dismantle the Beta bed, take it to the Alpha room and assemble it there. Make more space in the Beta room.

The Beta room, once cleared, was to house Mrs V’s new hospital bed to reduce the risk of pressure sores, while the Alpha room was to serve as a temporary bedroom for Mrs V and her husband for a couple of nights while the family awaited the delivery of the hospital bed.

At step two of executing the plan, the GoodGymers bumped into Ms R - another daughter of Mrs V, who had just arrived and was ready to lend a hand. The sisters, Ms G and Ms R, directed the GoodGymers to the side of the house, helping store the pieces of what was the Alpha bed out of sight. Then they proceeded to hoover the Alpha room - or at least they intended to. It turned out that Mrs V's hoover hadn't been charged, so the daughters had to resort to instantaneous sweeping while Sevan and Kash moved to step 4 in the Beta room.

When Kash carried a batch of packed clothes found on top of the Beta bed downstairs, she heard a doorbell and opened the door to the third daughter, who came to help.

"It's great to have a team of five," Sevan rejoiced.

While the three sisters, having found three dustpans, frantically removed thick layers of dust accumulated for years, or maybe decades, Kash stepped into the Alpha room with a bold announcement.

"The bed is ready to move!"

The statement was slightly premature, as Kash didn't anticipate what she and Sevan would find between the mattress and the surface of the Beta bed. Similar to the Alpha bed, its counterpart from the Beta room hid stratigraphic layers from different decades under the mattress: blankets, dozens of underwear pieces, a whole layer of colourful rags and even a pillow. Kash struggled to find a logical explanation for the accumulation of the fabrics, while Sevan theorised that the deposits were deliberate and served as a filler to ease the unevenness of the ageing mattress. Clearly, this solution couldn't work forever, and that's exactly what brought the GoodGymers to Mrs V.

Excavating the strata of clothes, rags and blankets by Sevan and Kash to free the Beta bed bought the sisters enough time to sweep the Alpha room.

The Beta room's bed construction, though similar on the surface to the other divan bed, was actually much simpler. It only took undoing two screws to remove the headboard and move the bed piece by piece to the Alpha room. The team completed the critical step 5 with 89th minute on the clock - bang on time! The three sisters were happy to move a few more things around in the Beta room, while the GoodGymers offered to carry the heaviest ones downstairs before leaving the house. The most important thing was that there was enough space in the Beta room to install the hospital bed, and that Mrs V and her husband had a place to sleep before the arrival of the new bed. What a mission it was!

Back the Mrs A back garden and met up with her son as she is still in hospital but on the mend. Still find golf balls, but now we have plant pots, old wooden chairs, garage trolley, broken gold clubs and wheelbarrows. A wheelbarrow can hide another one - found 2 of them : one without a wheel and the other fille with soil and weed!!

Cleared the space and we can now see where the greenhouse was before as slabs and bricks at the original area. We can now see the neighbors garden wall and the garden has loads of space. Still some work to be done, but the garden is clearly in better shape now.