Another visit at Mrs A who is still in hospital, but good news she is much better and will come out soon as her son told me today during my visit. More good news is that the clearing of the brambles in this massive garden is approaching - you can now see the back fence from the back door and also see the garage and house when at the back of the garden. Found more gold balls - a box full but no surprise there. There is also a compost container which Mrs A and her son will be able to use again. The garden looks much different after a few sessions.

Between Friday the 18th and Sunday the 21st, Goodgymers were spotted at different areas near water to take samples and test the water quality.Freshwater watch : checking the Nitrate and phosphate levels. Goodgymers having a sample day :

• Maria sampling Thames water near Kew Bridge
• Alan was at Gunnersbury Pond
• Sevan on the canal nor far from Elthorne Park
• Steph Ducat was on the Grand Union Canal between Southall and Hayes

Phospate levels pretty all the same for all and the nitrate levels with slight variants of pink but no signs of pollution at the areas sampled. No one ended up in the water - all nice and dry and having a sample day.

Coach visit : weekly visit with my 2nd coach Mr T. Same mode and good chat between to 2 of us

The 400th Acton junior parkrun (big celebration, woohoo!) brought 94 little finishers and some GoodGym legends as well!

Maria and Steph looked fresh and energetic, not indicating at all they'd just walked an overnight marathon, The Shine Walk! Congratulations both! If completing the race in 6h 19min itself wasn't enough of a feat (it was!), then how about reporting to junior parkrun duty in the morning to help set up the course? Some of you may call it craziness, we call it dedication!

Maria, with a shiny diamond still left in her hair from the race's glittery outfit, directed children into the funnel, and Steph gave the first timers a warm welcome and briefing, and then marshaled near the funnel.

Alan and Kash were the gatekeepers - marshaling at the South and North gates. Kash dealt with an emergency shoelace fix for a boy whose mum apparently hadn't heard of double knots.

It was quite a gap between the supersonic two leading girls and the tail walker, so the marshals enjoyed more time in the gentle autumn sunshine until the brand new fluffy fox tail has passed them. What a fantastic morning was it, finished with a chat over coffee!

On a very sunny Sunday afternoon in September, when it felt like summer was making a comeback, seven GoodGymers assembled in Pear Tree Park to join a riverside path-clearing session organised by Ben from Clean Up River Brent. The event was part of Ealing Climate Week and coincided with the ActForEaling social. ActForEaling is a coalition of nature & climate groups, and GoodGym Ealing are their partners.

While some of the other organisations opted to have a stall to promote their cause, GoodGym was all about hands-on action, so we headed straight towards the River Brent for the task. With shears, loppers and litter pickers in hand, the team disappeared into the thicket, opening up the overgrown entrances and cutting back vegetation to allow safe, comfortable access for visitors. Perhaps even more fittingly for Ealing Climate Week, we also collected litter that was plaguing the sides of the path. The further west we travelled, the less obvious the route became, meandering around a dried-up stream ditch or getting swallowed up by the previous flooding.

After more than an hour of clearing and tidying the path, we returned to the ActForEaling event near Pear Tree Bistro to collect free drink vouchers and meet some familiar faces. The occasion brought together several past and present task owners: Mary from ActForEaling & Ealing Repair Cafe, Elisabeth, formerly leading Acton Litter Collective, and Trevor from Ealing Transition.

Trevor had some great news: hedgehogs had been spotted in the Lammas Orchard, so our support with building their habitat had finally paid off! If you are interested in more projects led by Ealing Transition, including energy saving, schools' solar generation, food-growing skills, beekeeping and biodiversity restoration, join Trevor's storytelling talk next Sunday morning in South Ealing.

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 👌.