"The flowers are to brighten up my flat"

...said Ms C as she took her shopping inside, with Kash and Sevan following her. The first task for today's mission was to find a vase or other thing that could hold water to put the flowers in. With Kash completing the most important task of the day, it was time to start the decluttering work for Ms C.

Ms C asked the pair where they'd like to start, in the bedroom or the living room. Well, the route to the bedroom was blocked, so the living room was the way to go. Ms C's carer had tidied up by placing Ms C's unsorted belongings into black bags. Ms C had unpacked the bags so that she could see what was in them and now they needed to be sorted through by Kash, Sevan and Ms C.

Kash and Sevan spent the task crouched on the floor, surfing through the belongings covering it. They worked through documents, batteries, pens, expired medication and a number of scissors that didn't work as scissors anymore. One bag was filled with recycling and rubbish to dispose of, with the rest of Ms C's items moved onto the couch to be looked through in more detail later.

When nine GoodGymers stood on muddy crossroads in the middle of Grove Farm woodland, Mike, the leader of the regular volunteer group, asked an existential question.

Who wants to be a beaver today?

Ash, Melissa, Thaiza and Kash decided they would identify as beavers and use their natural talents to help Mike strengthen the dams, slowing the flow of the Grove Farm stream.

Find me some wood!

Big and small, half-rotten or three-quarters-rotten logs and branches were stacked on top or wedged against the existing two wooden dams to prevent the construction from falling apart. The aim was to extend the dams' lifespan and prevent water from leaking onto the paths. Pretty good for faux beavers, right? How effective the intervention was, time will tell, but it was lots of fun - particularly for those prepared and wearing wellies like Thaiza!

Meanwhile, Devi, Richard, Harvey, Steph and Sevan were up at the wood anemone battlefield, fending off a bramble attack. The thorny plants never knew when to stop, so the blackberries kept growing ahead of the anemones blooming season next month. The good news was that, within the last three years of helping Friends of Grove Farm, we weakened the brambles enough that they haven't grown back in full power since. That means less work for the new GoodGymers, but, hopefully, more wood anemones for everyone to see at next month's conservation day!

Another decluttering session at Mrs I in the conservatory. Some different treasures appear instead of the usual religious items or treasures : some stamps, children's books, VHS tapes and DVD from the 80's, special candles, postcards, crayons etc...decluttering the treasure trove. Treasure or Trash? We Found Both!! GoodGym and the Hidden Treasures are becoming a trend in Ealing. With Mrs I we have a system in place so now we are moving away from the baby steps on the previous session : 3 big bags sorted today which have been separated by rubbish and items to go to the church. Will we strike gold in the next mission or find more VHS Tapes.

Romance is in the air. February is the month of romance with Valentin's day. Romance is not dead and Goodgymers have not fallen out with litter and have proved once again this month by going out with their hearts and collected litter like cans, bottles, crisp and sweet wrappers, cigarette butt's, various plastic items, lost trainers, umbrellas and larger ones like sofas etc which some of them had to left behind and reported to the local services. There were some flirty pickup lines noted. All the lovely litter will find its way to its home like a recycling bin where it belongs and not in the streets or in the parks.

Walpole Park has been a frequent GoodGymming spot throughout December and January due to its seemingly endless supply of matter that needs shifting from place A to place B! The February session was no different, with an objective to mulch the newly planted tree whips along the park’s easternmost path.

Five Ealing GoodGymers, who met at the Tuesday group run, enjoyed the first evening of the year, which felt as if spring was just around the corner. No freezing fingers, no wind, no rain - well, if you don’t count the puddles remaining after the filming in Walpole Park earlier in the day. The film shoot involved pipes hung from the trees along the main alley to make fake rain, quite ironically, on the second rainless day of 2026 in London.

Chris, Freya, Sevan, Steph and Kash used their superhuman senses (and head torches) to locate the whips planted around an imposing plane tree in the dark. The stems were thinner than a little finger and easy to miss. The team had to be extra careful when wheelbarrowing mulch from a nearby woodchip pile to the end of the path, and not stomp on the whips. Survival of the fittest is not GoodGym’s motto after all. Buckets came in handy when carrying woodchip to the furthest areas to mulch.

The park was quiet and peaceful, apart from lively chats about travels and shrieks of foxes having fun in the bushes. The team covered the section of planted whips leading to the plane tree and around it. A few other nearby planted areas remained woodchip-free, but we’re keen to give it another try next week!

Today's Care4Calais session saw the 2-2 theme from the earlier Pitshanger Junior parkrun continue, with the team's skirts staying on through this session too. There was no other fancy dress on display as the start of the task was all business.

Boxes of school uniforms had arrived at C4C's West London base and the first task was to sort through them, getting rid of anything that was damaged or poor quality. Next, the clothes were organised by size. Instead of the child's age, which GoodGymers had used for previous school uniform tasks, the key today was the waist size as most donations were trousers. Some pairs were brand new, still with tags on and others had been to many lessons. Where helpful ex-owners had removed the size labels, as usual, the team needed to lay out the trousers to guess the waist size.

With the school uniforms bagged up, it was onto more colourful, less... grey clothing. First up were men's clothing donations where there were a lot of brands. Someone was clearly upgrading last season's Gucci/Lacoste/Givenchy for something new. Working through the women's clothes donations was fairly straight forward apart from some interesting sizing by the brands. A "medium" top that could fit 2 GoodGymers in it for example, well, that seemed like more of an (X)XL.

The final sizing issue that the team encountered was the size of the boxes in the storage room. Some were overflowing before the new donations even arrived. No matter how much Angela and Kash tried to squeeze in more jumpers or t-shirts, they wouldn't go. Admitting defeat, task owner Tamzin had to find the team some new overflow storage.

Today's session was all sorting and no pack creation because the ticket printer was on the blink, meaning that the tickets for new requests couldn't be created. Sevan had a look as the task wrapped up, pressed some buttons and like magic, the printer spat out a sheet of requests, ready for the afternoon's volunteering group to work through.