A week of turbulent weather at the beginning of June left GoodGymers wondering what Saturday would bring to the Horsenden Farm session. Delightful sunshine or dreadful rain? It turned out that neither rain nor shine was winning in the morning - what awaited us was overcast and gusts of wind, but the storm held off during the volunteering session.

Among the 11 GoodGymers at the farm were two new joiners: Anal and Ana, both very enthusiastic and keen to roll their sleeves up, no matter the task - what a great attitude to have at the first session!

Before the start of the task, Elsa from Friends of Horsenden Farm gave everyone an inspiring talk about the farm's history, from its humble origins as a derelict site to a thriving community space and a nature reserve - all brought to life by a decade of persistent work by a group of dedicated volunteers.

Elsa had two jobs for us today: first, making sure the farm plots have a source of homemade compost ready to use, and second, creating a new seating area for gatherings. Anastasiia, Amy, Delphine, Iram and Kaja have moved two huge piles of compost we had constructed in May, then combined another two (also last month's creations) into a single, tall heap.

Meanwhile, Anal, Ash, Kash, Maxime, Sevan and Steph Ducat moved heavy - and I mean heavy! - logs to a secret woodland area behind the sheds. They used a range of techniques from individual and paired carrying, through rolling to wheelbarrowing, to transport the timber blocks to a clearance in the woods. Later, we all enjoyed a break on the self-made seats in that truly magical place.

"I feel like a forest fairy here!" - Iram.

Although that job was really tough, the team still had some energy and over an hour to spare before the pizza o'clock. They decided to join the composting team and, based on Elsa's instructions, built a new, massive pile of fertiliser, layering fresh manure with woodchip - the famous lasagna technique!

The visit to the farm was a great opportunity to see some of the animal residents. No cats and cows this time, but we got to meet the two goats, a family of the rare breed of red-coloured Tamworth piglets, and harvest mice babies. We had to keep quiet when viewing the latter and refrain from taking photos in the nursery.

The harvest mouse is Britain's smallest rodent and has been recently reintroduced to Horsenden Hill and adjoining areas. To enable this rewilding endeavour (which even caught the attention of Sir David Attenborough!), the mice had to be brought from far corners of the UK. That's why some of the tubs with the rodents were labelled with descriptions like 1 pregnant Scottish lady.

The other highlights of the day were the introduction of a new pizza type, the creamy Jean-Claude, and a wedding reception, which pushed all the pizza lovers outside the main yard. We decided not to crash the party with our manure-scented boots.

If you think that sounds like a fun thing to do on a Saturday morning, join us in July at Horsenden Farm!

For this time we had quite a team with Sevan, Kash, Maria and Amy joining us from Ealing! Most of use were here early, joining the existing volunteers of Thames 21. They publish these events broadly and as a result, on top of regular, they always have a few new faces as well, one of them who came all the way from... Stratford! We also meet Annie who has been joining the a few of the Eyot missions by herself until now. After a long and detailed briefing, covering the ins and out of Balsam, we depart towards the Eyot, equipped with Thames Mud Proof Wellies. Despite the sunny weather of the past few days the mud is as sticky as usual, since the Thames tide never stop. Getting into the island, we spread thin as each person hunt for Balsam. The bravest ones, such as Sevan, go and open up a new path in the middle of nowehre to hunt for the invasive one. After a couple of hours of slashing, searching and uprooting the team finally disband as some of us need to go to the next task. A nice bounty from this session!

Clean Up River Brent (CURB), led by Ben Morris, has been very successful in recent years in removing Himalayan balsam from the banks of River Brent. What is Himalayan balsam, and why would anyone want to get rid of it, you may ask. The plant, native to the Himalayas, was brought to the UK in the 19th century for its ornamental qualities. Over the years, it became dominant on many riverbanks across the country. If left unchecked, the invasive balsam can exclude other plants and decrease biodiversity, as it’s not compatible with species living around it. This tallest annual weed (reaching even 3 metres in height!) dies each year and leaves no roots in the soil, which does not help hold the soil together and stop silt from washing into rivers. Silt, in turn, decreases water quality by blocking sunlight from reaching the water and helping spread pollution.

CURB’s plan for 2026 was to reduce balsam in Ealing to zero, and GoodGym Ealing were excited to find a Saturday to help Ben and the team with that ambitious mission. One walker, two runners and four cyclists from GoodGym met the regular Balsam Bashers at Brent Viaduct to walk up- and downstream the river and scour for baby balsam to curb it (pun intended) before it grows and flowers.

James, Richard and Kash went with basher Rachel to visit last year’s balsam hotspots, including a vast area GoodGymers helped clear in 2025. Rachel and Kash, who had done bashing in the nearby locations the previous year, were astonished by how much the place had changed. It was so hard to find any balsam - that might have felt unsatisfying to the bashers, but at the same time, it was proof that the strategy of fighting the invasive plant was working very well. Meanwhile, Sevan and Jo went downstream and found equally low numbers of balsam. With such slim pickings, part of the team - Ash and Amy - were redirected to litter picking, as rubbish in the river seemed way more abundant than the Himalayan invader.

The whole party came together, and regrouped after 90 minutes, as it was nearly impossible to spot any more balsam - the last year’s teams did so well! Resourceful Ben, having spotted “accessible rubbish”, proposed to GoodGymers to spend the last 30 minutes of the session on a litter blitz in the shallow part of the River Brent. The GoodGymers agreed, and in a very short time, retrieved a bag of rubbish each, and hauled some soaked, flytipped duvets - what an impressive and disgusting find!

As the area has mostly recovered from balsam invasion, CURB is now planning to use its budget to buy native plants to plant in selected areas once the balsam has been eliminated. Watch this space for the future sessions with them.

Friends of Waterman’s Park had a grand vision. Forget boring planters or a generic wildflower meadow. Enter the Dragon... path! The Green Dragon Path was going to be planted in a wildflower area, currently overtaken by grass. The creative vision came with a design on paper - what better way to attract adventurers than a map to a dragon’s treasure waiting to be uncovered!

Maria walked all the way from Hackney to Brentford to be part of this grand community endeavour, created in partnership with Green Dragon Primary School (how cool is that for a school name!). Amy, although new to GoodGym and West London, already had a couple of local volunteering tasks under her belt and couldn’t miss this one, so she cycled to Waterman’s Park too. Finally, Sevan and Kash - already having found some dragon figurines in the morning and gone on a Hobbit-style quest at noon - were up for anything that involved dragons and magic. All four GoodGymers were exactly where they needed to be.

After a bit of anticipation - while the visionary lead explained the approach, the mower was connected, the right tools arrived, and parents with children joined the effort to bring the dragon to life - everyone got to planting.

The soil was dry and hard, full of rocks and bricks, and it wasn’t easy at all to dig into, even for the smallest flowers. Luckily, the more powerful tools soon arrived and changed the course of the session. Sevan and Kash, already familiar with mattocks and pickaxes, were delighted to see the right tools to break through the impenetrable ground. One of the volunteers, Seyed - an embodiment of skill and strength - took mattocking to the next level, helping others dig holes and unearthing an impressive block of concrete, which later found its resting place in the Thames.

Maria and Amy, initially reluctant to admit their undiscovered love for hacking into the ground with a mattock - saying things like “You’re the strong one, you do it” or “I prefer a smaller, more gentle tool” - quickly changed their minds once they gave it a go. The mattock and pickaxe proved irresistible, and soon the pair were sending tremors through the soil that seemed to awaken the sleeping dragon. The mystical creature came to life, with flowers and spiky ornamental grasses shaping its winding body, head, and fishy tail. What a wonderful creation for the community it was!