Social visit with Mr T on a hot Sunday afternoon. Run from mission to social visit. My second person that I visit every week

As part of London Climate Action Week 2026, GoodGym Ealing hosted three wildlife survey sessions in three of the Tiny Forests across the Ealing borough that GoodGymers had helped plant within the last couple of years. Earthwatch Europe, the organisation behind this fantastic project, helped promote our events designed to connect local people with these small, densely planted native forests that support biodiversity while strengthening relationships between people and nature in urban settings.

From the perspective of raising awareness about the Tiny Forest hidden in the heart of Hanwell, the session at Cuckoo Park was a success. Alongside five GoodGymers, Steph Ducat, Sevan, Kash, A.B. and Penny, two local residents and nature enthusiasts, joined the fun.

Noah and Faye, who live nearby, had no idea the Cuckoo Park Tiny Forest even existed and were excited to discover it. They joined the wildlife survey, helping GoodGymers count butterflies, pollinators and ground dwellers such as ants, snails and earthworms. They were also keen to learn more about the project and expressed an interest in helping maintain their local Tiny Forest and spreading the word within the local community - potential future Tree Keepers in the making!

After the survey, the new Tree Keepers got stuck into some maintenance work, removing weeds and tall grasses that could suppress the growth of the smaller trees. Flowering plants were left untouched to continue attracting pollinators.

The Cuckoo Park Tiny Forest looked dramatically different from our previous visit. Tall grasses and thistles had sprung up throughout the site and, somewhat unexpectedly, so had several clusters of cereals! The forest was buzzing with life, and during the survey, we discovered that insects weren't the only creatures calling it home. While searching beneath a slab for ground dwellers, we uncovered a tiny mouse which stole the spotlight from the butterflies.

If that sounds like your kind of evening, we're hosting one more wildlife survey session during London Climate Action Week, this time combined with an optional run. Join us at the Hanger Hill Tiny Forest and help us discover what wildlife is hiding there!

An indoor decluttering mission sounded ideal on such a warm day. After being outside under the hot sun for their first 2 tasks of the day, Kash and Sevan were looking forward to this one. When they met Mr C's carer, he led them inside, past piles of clutter, then out to the back garden. This wasn't what Kash and Sevan were expecting. For Mr C's carer though, clearing the patio was priority number 1.

The garden had been cared for recently and had plenty of beautiful plants that had become overgrown. The pots that were sitting on the patio were to be moved to the back of the garden to make space for seating and a table during the summer. No one could see down the garden path and Mr C's carer admitted to not having been there for months, so some chopping tools were requested and Kash went an adventure to discover what lay at the end of the garden.

Once the the path was cleared and Kash had found some spots to move pots to, a plant chain was created. Mr C's carer lifted the pots up off the patio and handed them to Sevan. Sevan made his way down the uneven stairs and passed the pots on to Kash. Kash then slalomed her way along the garden path and found a safe space to drop the pots off.

Once the pots were moved, it was time to explore the other items on the patio and to work out what to get rid of. Kash, Sevan and the carer found:

• 3 metal tables with terminally rusty tops or legs
• Pieces of a bird feeding platform with no instructions
• A half-full box of clementines from last December in various states of decay, though 2 still looked perfectly orange
• Plastic containers, some cracked, most filled with water
• Broken bits of pots

Each item was examined by the carer and separated into plastic, general or "iron" black bags. The bags were left at one side of the patio for later disposal and the pots at the back of the garden were for future re-discovery. As Kash and Sevan left, they looked at the belongings indoors and could see more missions for Mr C coming soon. The saving grace was that patio was in a better state and was one step closer to allowing Mr C to use it again.

I stayed on at the Soup Kitchen for the lunch service where I helped serve then moved on to clearing and washing up. Chef Arul cooked an amazing chicken curry with a paneer vegetarian alternative (I tried the latter and it was delicious). Despite a slow start to the morning we served over one hundred hungry clients with takeaways also available. As always it was hard work but lovely to be there and see how much the guests enjoyed their meals.

On this very summery Saturday, nine GoodGymers joined Janpal and Ash at Western Road Urban Garden in Southall for a community day. As usual, our favourite Southall task owners left the most exciting, most technical and most physical tasks for our brilliant team!

The main task of the day was to pick up where we had left off during our previous sessions at the polytunnel and finish transforming the area around it.

Before we started, we got to see what had been happening on the path we created a couple of months ago on the less visible side of the polytunnel. Ash proudly showed us a new beehive that had been installed there and told us he had already tasted honey produced by the Western Road Urban Garden bees, harvested not long ago.

Janpal also gave us his famous tour of the urban garden, showcasing the many ways it supports the local community, from the vegetable plots and raised beds used by community groups and schools to the exotic produce grown in the polytunnel, which is supplied to local food banks, where fresh fruit and vegetables are often among the hardest items to source through donations.

The tour was especially valuable as we welcomed not one, not two, but three new joiners: Keise, Barnaby and Mandeep. With gardening backgrounds ranging from years of farming and flower-growing to complete gardening beginners, they all quickly got stuck in. Alongside regulars Sevan and Steph Ducat, and the legendary walking duo Danny and Kat - who had already covered 10 kilometres before the task even began - the team got to work. Together, seven GoodGymers tackled the main task, battling through hard, dry soil to remove weeds and the old membrane before laying a layer of terram (stellar work on that, Kat, Mandeep and Keise!) and finally covering the area with woodchip, laid at speed by Sevan, Barnaby, Danny and Steph.

This left Freya and Kash to take on a very different task: digging and moving dried mud. However strange that combination of words may sound, it was needed to reinforce the base for a new water tank. As Janpal and Ash explained, they have been struggling with water pressure at the urban garden, and watering the many plants during such hot weather has become a demanding task that Janpal has had to undertake every other day. To help solve this issue, we had previously assisted with digging the hole for the foundation for new large water tanks that would be installed.

Freya and Kash spent most of the session filling the sides of the frame with soil and securing the area by pegging a membrane around the edges. Along the way, they had great fun putting a landscaping tamp into action and discovering that it's slightly larger and heavier than the ones used to make an espresso.

To get ahead of the water tanks' installation, Barney and Keise took on the satisfying task of smashing bricks and other construction debris unearthed during previous sessions into smaller pieces. Far from simply letting off steam, they were creating ballast for the concrete base that will support the new tanks. At Western Road Urban Garden, nothing goes to waste!

As always, the GoodGym team was treated to the generosity of Southall Community Alliance and enjoyed plenty of fresh fruit, along with some amazing samosas freshly baked by a local shop that Janpal had brought along.

Before leaving Western Road Urban Garden, we completed one final task: emptying a small water tank by abundantly watering the plants in the polytunnel. We then helped Ash fix the filling mechanism and secured the tank with wedges to level it properly. What a fulfilling Saturday morning it was!

We're now getting close to the final stage of installing the new water tanks, which will involve a bit of concreting and hands-on engineering - no prior experience required! The project will make a huge difference, helping Janpal and Southall Community Alliance tackle ongoing water pressure issues and reducing the need for time-consuming manual watering during the summer. To help the polytunnel produce survive and thrive through the hot months ahead, we'll be scheduling this task soon, so watch this space.

My third and final task in Southall on a dry, hot Saturday was mowing the front and back gardens for Ms M. The weather was perfect for this kind of job, although I have to admit the heat did start to take its toll on me before I reached the mission location.

The front garden turned out to be a quick win. The grass was quite long, but I was given a small Bosch mower, which proved to be a surprisingly powerful little beast and made short work of it.

For the second part of the task, I took the mower and extension cable through to the back garden - and what I found was more of a jungle than a lawn. The grass was almost as tall as me (not that I’m particularly tall, but still), and it looked more like material for a strimmer job than something a mower should reasonably handle.

The Bosch beast didn’t disappoint, though. We became a solid team out there - her brute force and my GoodGym know-how were a match made in gardening heaven. I lifted the beast's front wheels to attack the grass at an angle - a trick learned from previous extreme lawn-mowing missions. The main challenge wasn’t just the grass, but what was hiding in it. As it came down, all sorts of litter were revealed: food packaging, cans, plastic bags, and even socks, which proved particularly unpleasant when they got tangled in the mower's blades. At one point, I also uncovered several balls - one of which was claimed by a boy from a neighbouring garden, who popped his head over the fence to see what was going on.

Using the Bosch mower, I couldn’t help thinking of Hieronymus Bosch, and as the garden transformed, I couldn’t quite decide what I was looking at - a slice of heaven in the tidy grass, or something closer to hell once all the hidden debris came to light.

By the end, the back garden was finally brought under control. I left it in a much more manageable state for Ms M and her family to maintain - otherwise it felt like it could easily slip back into a Bosch-like purgatory state of a never-ending cycle of overgrowth.