Arrived to do the shopping for Mr K but he had already asked someone else to do it, so I kept him company while he watched the football

After a recent visit by Michelle, Ms L's garden still needed a lot of work. She had a big list of improvements still to make in her front garden, with removing some long grasses at the top of her list. Looking around, there was a lot of ivy too, which Sevan asked about. Although Ms L hadn't mentioned it, it turned out that she had strong, scary feelings about the ivy.

"Have you ever seen that film, Day of the Triffids?"
"The ivy is coming in through the windows and I feel like it's out to get me!" - Ms L

Well, the triffids had a date with GoodGym today. Sevan and Kash needed to clear the ivy to free Ms L of her post-apocalyptic vibes. The ivy was growing up both sides of the windows at the front, covering parts of them and creeping in through the vents. One side of the garden had a wall covered in ivy too.

Kash started clearing a path through the front garden and chopping the tall grasses that were top of Ms L's list, while Sevan started moving planters and other obstacles to get to the base of the ivy plants. The plan wasn't to remove the ivy today, only to cut the base of the vines to kill off everything above.

Sevan lopped away at the bottom of the ivy next to the front door, trying and failing to dodge a rose bush which he kept getting caught on. He discovered a thick ivy root/branch running under the render that he couldn't reach. Kash generated a huge amount of cuttings that were packed into some giant garden waste bags. Big enough to hold both Kash and Sevan inside.

When the centre of the garden was cleared, Sevan made it to the far side to find and chop the 1 really thick ivy vine that was terrorising that side of the house. Again moving obstacles and pink flamingos was key. Kash tackled the wall shared with the neighbour, doing a superb job of eliminating the ivy there. Importantly, the vines creeping in through the windows and vents were removed too.

The enormous garden waste bag was filled and a second started, leaving Ms L very grateful with the improvement. She'll rest easy knowing that the killer plant had itself been killed (for the moment anyway).

13 GoodGymers, one very congested path to clear, below zero temperatures - it could only be our first group run of the year!

After a couple of weeks away from group sessions it felt great to be back doing what we do best - supporting local communities, getting active, and having a lot of laughs along the way.

Our job for the evening was at Strand on the Green school, where we were tasked with clearing a pathway that had become very congested with leaves, mud and branches. So after a run down to the school, avoiding all the precarious icy patches, we grabbed tools and got stuck in.

There were branches to break down, mud to scoop and debris to clear. We caught up on all the things we had been up to over the break - how many cheeseboards were consumed, who did festive parkruns, who started training for some epic 2026 races.

Before long the path had been transformed into a beautiful, clear walkway so we put everything away and moved on to fitness.

Diving up into pairs we swapped between conditioning and cardio exercises and soon any thoughts of the freezing weather were forgotten as we concentrated on who was doing what.

There are lots of exciting sessions coming up, including:

This Sunday mission in Putney I mentioned. It's going to a fun and impactful one creating a seating area for under fives - be great to see you there!

The January session weaving and bashing balsam on Chiswick eyot

..and next week's group session picking plastic by the river

Shopping for Mr K, featuring the Saturday newspaper

Kash started the New Year in Surrey, where GoodGym is not yet a thing, so she ran 12km to Feltham, thirsty for an impactful adventure. What could have stood in the way of reaching the mission location? Private roads! Kash had to add a kilometre or so to her original route and arrived slightly late at Mrs N's. The lady was nonetheless delighted to see the GoodGymer again and wished her a happy New Year.

While Mrs N prepared her signature Greek coffee for Kash, her husband, Mr A, explained the priorities of the gardening task. Contrary to Kash's assumptions, it was not the overgrown bush that had to be tackled first, but the paving threatened by patches of grass, brambles, and stems of future bushes that had established themselves between the slabs. Mr A accepted that Kash was unlikely to cut back the bush in the front garden within the 90-minute mission limit... but Kash didn't!

The GoodGymer, being an avid fan of chopping unruly branches, gazed longingly at the bush, but resisted the temptation and swapped secateurs for a trowel to scrape the grass between the slabs. The secateurs came in handy later to cut the woody stems that shouldn't be part of the paving.

After removing all the grass and sweeping the green waste into a pile, Kash concluded with satisfaction that there was still time for trimming the branches she was after. Ten minutes later, the bush got a new haircut, and the heap of cuttings grew twofold. Mrs N was very grateful for the help and said she admired the idea of GoodGym and would have loved to join the community herself if only her back problems and caring for her elderly mum and husband weren't on the way.

On the first day of the year I made my way to Ms L’s by bike riding into the icy wind along the A4 cycle path to Heston.

The fact my back tyre was partially flat made for an interesting and elongated journey but despite this Ms L was very understanding and grateful of the help.

She has been advised she has to clear the overgrown front garden and it has been causing much stress as she’s not well enough to do this herself. Ms L loves her plants and says many of her neighbours comment on how pretty they are when they’re in flower so she doesn’t want to remove them. But she does need and welcome the help to clear the area around the plant pots.

One large heavy duty gardening sack later, the pathway to the front door was clearer. I cycled home via a coffee shop to thaw out with a nice hot drink.

The rest of the clearing could do with a dynamic duo or tremendous trio who like a challenge … in west London, I wonder who that could be?!