As the dark Ealing skies rumbled with Diwali fireworks, three runners with head torches did a loop around Walpole Park and ran into the dead-end at the back of Rickyard Café, inadvertently scaring away a group of youths socialising on the benches. While Sevan stood on guard, Steph and Kash took wheelbarrows and shovels from the park tool store, then all three ventured into the Walled Garden to clear a compost bin they were going to fill. Tall weeds had grown in the space where the woodchip had run out, but removing them was merely a warm-up for seasoned GoodGymers.

The main task for the night was transporting compost, which had been delivered only a few hours earlier, to the empty bin. The pile was destined to be shared for free with local allotments over the weekend (GoodGym is supporting that initiative too!), but the Walled Garden was also going to receive its share. Ensuring the latter was tonight's job.

The trio followed their noses to find the smelly heap without fail. Sevan scented subtle notes of prunes, while for Steph the aroma resembled that of brewery or distillery waste. The team dipped their shovels into the compost heap. The sky thundered with fireworks, but the thick smoke on the ground came from the disturbed fertiliser.

The wheelbarrowed black gold made its way to the compost bin in various styles. Our favourite was Steph's pirate-inspired walking the plank. With each trip from the pile to the bin, the GoodGymers continued to progress to new levels, stacking the front bin planks to prevent compost spillage. The difficulty of the soil drop raised, but teamwork was an easy remedy for that.

When the compost bin was filled and levelled, the fireworks shot into the sky to announce that achievement and didn't stop booming when Steph, Sevan and Kash were leaving the park. In fact, that pyrotechnic fever keeps going while I write this report late in the night.

I will leave you now with this sniffhanger and hope you will join us for the compost giveaway day this Sunday, or our next Tuesday group run with This Girl Can to lift the curfew for exercising women after the clocks go back.

For those who don't believe in Autumn starting on the 1st of September, last night there was no escape from the equinox marking the start of the darker half of the year. Headtorch season was on. After a 2km run in Walpole Park, four Ealing GoodGymers, who were about to start their task, concluded it was already time for the work lights.

The only tool Harvey, Steph, Sevan and Kash needed for tonight's job was a pair of thick, long gloves. Was falconry a new GoodGym discipline? The quartet hoped to get an Ealing Eagle landing on their gloves - and, ideally, in their team - yet, not many runners ventured to the park nighttime. What's more eccentric than running in an unlit park after dark? Pulling thistles in an unlit park after dark! The GoodGymers ticked off both oddities in a single night, and removed three trolleys of invasive plants in an hour - the result equally good as last week!

Next week we're going to give the thistles a break and take down the signs after the best half marathon that is happening this week - sign up now!

On 30 June 1908, near the Tunguska River in Siberia, a mysterious shock wave flattened 2,150 square metres of taiga forest. The explosion sparked numerous hypotheses and inspired many works of fiction. 117 years later, a similar event took place in Walpole Park, Ealing. Thistles in an area roughly the size of half a tennis court have been flattened by an unknown force. On Tuesday evening, the GoodGym Ealing Team set off around sunset to investigate the unusual occurrence.

Bryon and Kash headed to the Rangers' secret facility to collect scientific equipment while Steph and Sevan scouted the outer area of Walpole Park, running. Apart from the closed and taped gate, they haven't found anything worth reporting, so they reunited with the rest of the team. In the Rangers' base, the GoodGymers read the research materials about thistles. Easy to pull when young, was the key information. It seemed that the knowledge from seemingly unrelated fields applied to nature conservation. Armed with that advice, the team collected a trolley and a minimum of tools, just in case they would encounter mature thistles.

The site of the unnatural phenomenon, located near the park entrance close to Lammas Park, looked odd, but passers-by didn't seem to pay too much attention to the anomaly. The GoodGymers started collecting samples, and, in the process, they pulled out almost all the felled thistles. It appeared as if they were now covering up the incident. Kash took the first full trolley to dispose of the evidence. On the way through the dark park, she encountered a couple on the bench.

"Is that for the giraffes?", the man asked at the sight of the heap of thistles.
"Yes, and they already want seconds!"
"Ha. Very hungry!"

Steph was the one to bring the giraffes the "seconds", hauling the next trolley to the space where the Rangers kept sensitive evidence. Meanwhile, the team progressed with clearance so far that they have pulled out the thistles that hadn't even been knocked down. The third and final trolley was pulled by Sevan, with the assistance of the rest of the team, in case they weren't able to pull off the giraffe feed excuse anymore and would have to deal with the witnesses of the thistle drop off. Luckily, nothing like that happened, and all the evidence was safely disposed of in the designated area.

GoodGym sessions are meant to be short, sweet and impactful. With about an hour for a task at our group runs, it would be easy to leave a job half-finished - but we don't like that!

A month after we had turned into wild boars for one night to dig for bramble roots just as it were Périgord truffles, we returned to the pond area in Walpole Park for the wild wrestling showdown with the brambles!

Steph and Kash ran to the task, with the former carrying a sizeable backpack. Some people call it coming to a group run straight after work - we call it military-style training. Mohamed, Sevan and Andrew confidently walked into the ring, ready to put on thick, red gloves and knock brambles out of the park.

Andrew chose a fine job for his first GoodGym session and was about to make a difference in the park where he used to volunteer. Welcome, Andrew!

While we would expect Eye Of The Tiger to be the soundtrack for a prize fight, the music of a brass instrument, a trumpet perhaps, filled the park. Kash would swear it was an attempt on Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, but there was no one to confirm that.

In less than an hour the brambles by the pond were completely knocked out! To drag them out of the ring, first Sevan and Andrew had to haul a trolley with trimmings to the green waste area, then the activity was repeated by Steph and Mohamed. Our team left Walpole Park victorious with no more brambles to dig out in sight. We admit that it was just starting to get dark though!

Next week we are heading to Acton to invite residents for a free community event with music, food, activities and stalls of the Reduce and Recycle Hub partners. Join us now!

Equipped with head torches, working lights and a secret key to the park gates, the GoodGymers ran the streets surrounding Walpole Park and stopped in front of Pitzhanger Manor to regroup. At Rickyard's tool storage, they collected spades, mattocks, loppers, shears, thick gloves and additional assets: park volunteer hi-viz. Although no one should walk in the locked park after dark, the GoodGymers wanted to be perceived as... well, volunteers!

Chris, Sevan, Steph Ducat, and Kash returned to one of the spots where GoodGym fought off brambles last year. Some of the blackberry bushes grew back but seemed small and vulnerable in the winter, which made it a perfect time for a counterattack. Steph and Kash used their favoured weapon, the Mighty Mattock, while Sevan wielded his favourite Spartan Spade with a long shaft and an ample blade. Chris was paving the way to dig out the bramble roots, chopping the stems with Shadowy Shears. He has been very meticulous in giving the blackberries a proper trim.

"It's like I could be a barber in my other life."

The night was calm, windless and dark, with a crescent moon shining against the black, cloudless sky. Although serene, the night was not quiet. As the team worked right next to a pond, quacks and shrieks of water birds counterpointed the sounds of digging and pulling out the roots with effort. Suddenly, the GoodGymers heard the voices of strangers from the street behind the fence.

Chris walked up to a couple on their nighttime stroll. The pair was asking what on earth the GoodGymers were during at this time in the park. Chris used his diplomatic skills and years of GoodGym expertise to describe who we were and what activity we were engaged with. Kash came over and explained that Ealing GoodGymers at today's session were helping with park maintenance after dusk as they had day jobs and couldn't come earlier, then assured that their Tuesday evening sessions get less awkward in the summer. The passers-by turned out to be daily visitors to the park and thanked our team for helping keep their favoured park beautiful and safe.

With a small team we removed nearly 40% of the brambles covering selected patch and did our best to extract the roots, which in some places ran deep and were extremely stubborn. One area looked particularly wrecked, just like after a visit from a wild boar digging for his dinner!

Next week we are visiting a different park in our borough, Blondin Park, where a pile of woodchip waits to be moved. Sign up and join Steph in helping the park. Rewards? Feeling great (and hot chocolate)!

Foreman Michelle's head torch cast a strong beam of light that cut through the darkness in Walpole Park. Her team of four plunged their shovels into bottomless piles of woodchip. The woodchip was to be spread evenly around the bases of oak trees along a path - or at least that was what the team believed in.

Two floodlights and five head torches seemed like a glimmer against the pitch-black night. But Foreman Michelle could see very well whether Alan and Sevan covered the tree roots with the standard 20 cm layer of mulch and whether the amount of woodchip that Steph and Kash loaded each time into the wheelbarrow didn't exceed the acceptable health & safety regulations.

After hitting the target of 8 trees mulched, Michelle decided it was knocking-off time. The team returned the tools to the storage, cleaned the wheelbarrows and set off to their homes for rest as the next day another work shift awaited at Gunnersbury Park.