It was a relief that the new oven was up and running today. In spite of the heat, Ealing Soup Kitchen’s clients much prefer a hot meal. Manager Angela was today’s chef and she cooked a Caribbean special of stewed peas with ox tail and rice. Vegetarian option was also popular and ran out which is unusual. I was on serving duties and kept busy with a constant flow of clients - all wanting their food and a seemingly endless supply of cold drinks. I always enjoy serving as I get a chance to chat to the regulars - and meet the new clients.

It was another hot one today but that didn’t deter the clients from lining up for tea and coffee. And a lot must have missed breakfast as there was a big demand for breakfast cereal. Such a demand that we thought we had run out of milk at one point - but one of the resourceful supervisors had stashed a secret supply! Slushies were also a great idea.

GoodGymers Melissa, Martin and Alan joined the regular locals to help unload and sort the delivery to South Ealing Community food cupboard at St Mary's church.

As well as plenty of fresh fruit and veg, this week's supplies included large quantities of yogurt and single cream. There was so much yogurt that a local school was put on standby to take any surplus as a lunchtime treat.

In a rare alignment of planets, this month Horsenden Farm did not have any of his standard crew of 'leaders'.

No problem at all and all hail to COMMUNIST GOODGYM! WE ARE ALL LEADERS!

Oopss. I got a bit carried away. 😅

No problem at all. Amy, Freya and Gus met with Magda from the Friends of Horsenden Hill and we got to it (There may have been a quick coffee and pastry stop on the way)

The task today was to help clear up the pond. One of the volunteer hopes to make it less steep for wildlife to get into it but before that the current situation needs assessing and as it is it's just overgrown.

So we got started with moving a pile of logs until.... Delphine made an appearance!!!

We had perhaps been a little too keen on getting started that we did not wait for anyone else that was maybe perhaps on their way. But she found us and got to it straight away too.

Logs piled up. It was time to get to the fun bit! Barbed wire. Amy showcased her wire cutting skills while Freya and Delphine started bashing the overgrowth while Gus helped dismantling the fencing. After a little bit of tea discussion we actually got offered a lovely cuppa from Magda. That was needed to help finish the job.

While there is more to be done, a large part of the fencing is now gone and a good chunk of the pond cleared up. A pizza well earned!

Until next time!

If anyone tells me that burdock removal tasks throughout the summer can ever get boring, I'll ask them to think twice! Last Tuesday evening's session started like an action film, with three runners: Sevan, Steph Ducat and Kash, galloping at race pace and adding an extra kilometre and a half to retrieve a mission-critical item for the evening: the tool store keys that Kash had forgotten at home. What this extreme heat does to our brains!

Fortunately, the legs coped better with the heat than some of the brains. The racing trio arrived only two minutes late, while cyclists Amy and Scott and walkers Yonas, Harvey and Richard were already waiting at the task. The action-film atmosphere continued as Kash navigated the site's complicated security system and finally liberated the tools.

Eight GoodGymers grabbed a pair of wheelbarrows, a couple of spades and a collection of loppers, then set off to face all the burdock in Elthorne Park they hadn't tackled at last month's session and which had had time to grow. Many of the plants had already started producing sticky burrs. Amy and Kash, with hair a bit longer than the rest of the group, could testify to that.

"Actually, those burrs don't stick to my hair. It's my hair that sticks to them." – Amy.

Hitching a ride in people's hair and clothes or dogs' fur is burdock's prime strategy for travelling long distances and colonising new territory. And that's not its only trick. A single plant can produce thousands of seeds, allowing it to spread rapidly and outcompete surrounding plants for sunlight, water and nutrients. That's why GoodGymers regularly visit Elthorne Park in the summer to keep its expansion in check.

This time, the ranger asked us to focus on the outliers - not the dense patches where burdock was already established, but the lone plants and small clusters threatening to spread across the fields and along the paths.

After clearing the path on the way to the main burdock patch, the team spread into smaller groups across the large field, venturing almost as far as the Bambi statue. Everyone did a tremendous job, greatly reducing the spread of burdock across the park. A special thanks goes to Yonas and Scott, who tirelessly wheelbarrowed the cut plants to a pile away from the main visitor routes.

It was Scott's very first GoodGym session, but you'd never have guessed it - he tackled burdock like a seasoned pro. Well done, Scott, and welcome to GoodGym! We're hoping to see you again soon.

After another successful evening keeping Elthorne Park's burdock under control, we're already looking ahead to the next adventures. This weekend we'll be back in Hanwell helping HANGOT maintain their community fruit orchards, and next Tuesday Sevan will lead us to Perivale to support Impact Theatre by sanding walls ahead of painting. We are hoping to see you there!

As I was away in Cardiff, I swapped from Saturday visit to a Sunday visit as back from my trip in Wales today