Another great GoodGym Hounslow session happened last night, with plenty to celebrate and two important community tasks helping local green spaces recover after the drought.

🎉 Celebrations all round

A huge congratulations to Maxime on his 100th Good Deed! That is a fantastic milestone and a testament to the time, energy and commitment he has put into helping others in the community. Reaching 100 good deeds means 100 occasions of turning up, getting stuck in and making a tangible difference — one task, one neighbour and one community space at a time. What an achievement!

We also gave a warm GoodGym welcome to David, who joined us for his very first session. It was great to have him along, and we hope this is the first of many GoodGym adventures.

💦 Watering after the drought

With our local green spaces needing some extra care following the drought, we split into two groups for two very worthwhile watering tasks. One group headed to Abundance in Chiswick, helping to water their community growing spaces. Organisations like Abundance do so much to bring people together around food, nature and sustainable local communities, so helping to keep their plants healthy is a small but important way of supporting that work.

The other group headed to Wild Chiswick’s allotments, where there was plenty to keep us busy watering plants that had been through a tough spell of dry weather. Wild Chiswick helps protect and nurture local biodiversity while keeping valuable community growing spaces thriving. We even had a curious fox was keeping watch over proceedings! 🦊

🤝 Reuniting!

We decided to skip the usual workout in the interests of bringing the groups back together and spending more time as one team. Neither group was short of a workout, though. At Turnham Green, the watering crew had to carry heavy watering cans all the way across the Green from the rockery — definitely enough functional fitness to make up for skipping the usual fitness! Next week, we’re back to normal with our session at Chiswick House — workout included!

A big well done to everyone. From 100 good deeds to a first session, and everything between and beyond, it was another great night of doing good together. 💚

I arrived at Mr G’s soon after leaving the first mission recipient, as they both live in Hanworth, an easy distance away.

Mr G used to look after the garden himself but now he has developed a chronic health condition he hasn’t been able to manage it. For over a year he had been trying to get help and then called ageuk and they referred him to us.

The front garden has been completely covered by a carpet of invasive weed, the lawn that was once where his children played when they were younger has been taken over. Shrubs are surrounded and the invasion was starting to creep up and into the downstairs neighbours’ kitchen window.

Mr G brought a strimmer down and I set to work with some brand new sheers he had ordered for the task.

Given how much there was to do I decided to work on clearing one side this time, and 2-3 Goodgymers could group together and come back for a further mission to tackle the largest part of the “jungle” as Mr G called it.

While I was working the neighbour’s cat kept darting in and out too scared to come up to me, but too curious to stay away.

Eventually the scaredy cat came to say hello.

This is definitely a job for west London’s GoodGym heroes. A couple more pairs of hands might mean Mr G can see the ground of his garden again and then work out what to do to keep the invasion at bay.

I arrived at Ms L’s a few minutes early because she lives very close to the parkrun I’d just finished.

Ms L was really pleased to have some more help from Goodgym to get started on clearing the front garden. She is hoping to get a skip and clear the larger back garden for when her mum returns home.

Today’s mission was to clear the driveway and cut back the brambles and pull out the bindweed that is threatening to take over.

Ms L is very grateful of any help Goodgym can give as she juggles 3 jobs and looking after her daughter and trying to get her mum home.

What a challenge at Strand on the Green School last night!

We arrived to discover a huge task ahead of us: moving 3 tonnes of bark and 5 tonnes of sand to different locations around the school. We were definitely up for the challenge, but agreed that our usual fitness session probably wouldn’t be required afterwards!

We got straight to work. Maxime, Michelle, Alanna and Fran took on the particularly hard task of shifting heavy bags of sand up the stairs to the sandpit. Heavy bags + flights of stairs = amazing full body workout!

Meanwhile, the rest of the group were showing off some impressive muscle with some excellent farmers’ lifts moving buckets, and shovelling and barrowing sand to different areas of the playground and nursery while wearing a fetching policeman's hat👮

Somehow we managed it all in record time! Originally thinking we’d have to come back next week to finish the job, but the the whole lot was completed in a single session thanks to amazing teamwork from everyone.

Clare, the caretaker, was really pleased with the result given how long it would it have taken one person. Huge well done to everyone for taking on such a massive challenge and getting it done together. And thanks to Lucy for the run report title!

The last session of a hot Saturday took Sevan and Kash to Isleworth, where, according to Kash, who had visited Mr C's property the week before, they would find shade. But not for long! They were about to cut some trees!

"Welcome to the jungle" - Mrs J, Mr C's wife.

The garden didn’t look much like a jungle to Sevan and Kash at eye level, but, looking up, they could see that the tree crowns had grown out of control.

Sevan first tackled a wisteria plant that had climbed up a magnolia tree, and now rose even above it. He cut two wisteria branches, twisted around each other, at head height. The hope was that anything above, hanging on the magnolia, would eventually die out, freeing the tree.

Sevan then took a long-reach pruner to decimate the branches of a bay leaf, which had started as a herb in a pot but ended up as a full-grown tree, several metres high.

Meanwhile, Kash reunited with Mrs J to form a sniper and spotter squad, which had been very effective the previous week in cutting bits of a very spiky wild plum tree. With Mrs J holding the ladder and collecting the cuttings, Kash managed to take down several big branches with a saw, leaving only the thickest one that grew upwards from the tree trunk.

Cutting down most of the plum tree’s crown not only allowed more light into Mr C’s and Mrs J’s house, but was also beneficial for neighbourly relations.

"Wow, the tree is gone! It looks great. Thanks so much. J, we'll buy you a plum tree in a pot for getting rid of this horror!" - Neighbour.

A return visit to Mrs M for Kash and Sevan brought a similar request. Over the summer, one of the trees that the GoodGymers trimmed 4 months ago had shot up and needed to be brought back to a manageable height.

"This should be a quick one" - Kash

After 40 minutes of trimming, the pair were almost finished and were neatening up shape of the tree. As Mrs M walked past, she casually doubled the GoodGymers' work.

"Can you do the same to that one" - Mrs M

Mrs M was pointing to the neighbouring thuja tree, a type of cypress. This would no longer be a quick one...

The thuja was a different beast. Much more wild. Sevan found the right technique as he started shaving the sides from bottom to top. Kash tackled the top of the tree, which was much trickier than the first as there were fewer branches that formed the point and they were each much thicker. A long saw was found in the shed and together with a long stretch, Kash managed to saw the tree down to size and everything was packed away to the garden waste bin.