When GoodGymers from Ealing found out about the weekend community clean-up in Southall's Western Road Urban Garden, they were excited about the first day of the event, but no one seemed to be able to come on the second day. After five of us attended the big Saturday clean up, everything changed. We returned on Sunday for more samosas (I mean: digging the soil! 😅) and in greater numbers! We had five Ealing folks and Tabitha from GoodGym Brighton, who was the force behind the endeavour. Tabitha told us about the event in the first place. Without her, the fantastic collab between GoodGym Ealing and the Southall Community Alliance wouldn't happen! She deserves two good deeds for that - give her a cheer! 👏

Apart from yesterday's gang: Harvey, Sevan, Milly and Kash, we welcomed one of the Ealing legends, Bryon, who visited the urban garden for the first time. There were also more familiar faces that we met the previous day. While the new volunteers were going through their health & safety briefing, most of us were ready to pick up our tools and get straight to work (or pick up the pakoras and then get to work! 😜).

On Saturday, Janpal from the SCA had promised us that Sunday would be about enjoying the milder weather and planting trees. That was true, yet there was digging work still to be done. The mattocks (it is that thing you may call a pickaxe but the part you use for hitting is flatter in a mattock) went into action again. We crashed the rocks and smashed the glass and tiles hidden under the soil. The amount of 30-year-old rubbish we kept digging out seemed infinite. Milly diligently was sifting through the heaps of antiques we discovered, separating glass from rusty metal, rocks from roots, and plush ducks from plastic bunnies.

Time flies while you are having fun! It was nearly 1 pm when we decided we have done enough with mattocks and forks to remove the debris and prepare the soil for tree planting. It was the time for our favourite snacks, tea or coffee, and a chat with our new volunteer friends. Milly was not among those who ran straight to the delicious fritters 😋, but accompanied Mani from Southall Transition in putting out the tree plugs.

After the break, Mani gave us instructions with a demo on how to plant a tree 🌱. It looked simple. The reality had lots of surprises for us! We were supposed to dig the soil for the whole depth of a spade's blade, but after getting just halfway there, we kept hitting rocks, bricks or metal rods. We had to repeat the exercise of digging out the waste again! GoodGymers don't get easily discouraged and always welcome a good workout, so we removed the obstacles and put the trees where they belonged. The next stage was mulching (something the Ealing crew are experts in!) and watering the new trees (the real-life farmer's walk workout).

The session finished with group photos and the last chance to grab refreshments before heading off. While saying our goodbyes, we looked at the sky and caught sight of the famous Jeffrey the Red Kite 🪶. He was on his way to spreading the news about the brilliant work in the Western Road Community Garden across the whole borough.

We had 6 volunteers this morning for a fresh and breezy Pitshanger Junior parkrun. As with Acton Juniors, the number of runners was much higher than when we helped out in February, with 50 finishers this time!

Kash and Harvey took their regular roles as barcode scanners, while Michelle, Alan, Samar and Sevan headed onto the course as marshals.

Michelle and Alan had impressively run to the park from Chiswick and also came dressed in matching clothes. They were both showing off their black GoodGym t-shirts with Michelle in a bright pink base layer and Alan in bright blue. It was like they'd planned it, but may have been complete chance.

The rain yesterday had left the course wet, with big puddles near Michelle and Sevan's marshal posts. They were asked to warn the runners of the dangers ahead. Some children and adults took heed of the warning and ran around the water. Others took it as a challenge and shouted "I'm going to run through that!". That was the children, not the adults.

It was great to see Samar after a winter break and hopefully we'll see her again soon... maybe at the next Pitshanger Junior parkrun in April if not sooner.

Five GoodGymers followed the clues from Southall Community Alliance to arrive at an inconspicuous location of a future community garden. Once they noticed an entrance to a muddy place looking a bit like a building site with balloons and a person with a litter picker in front of it, they knew where is the party spot. And indeed, the event started in a party style! The organisers of the community cleanup day from Southall Community Alliance and Southall Transition warmly welcomed GoodGymers, with tea, coffee, fruit, biscuits and other snacks - including delicious pakoras and samosas 😋

Janpal from the SCA gave us a briefing about the site that had been untouched and bramble-ridden for over 30 years. He missed the chance to draw from his arsenal of weather-related jokes in his speech as the rain just ceased. We learned about the Western Road Urban Garden Project and the plans for creating a polytunnel where the community can grow food.

Harvey, Sevan, Kash and Madhan chose the digging work by the fence where, on Sunday, the volunteers were going to plant trees (GoodGym is going to be there too!). Milly joined the LAGER Can folk and chose a litter picker as her weapon against the waste: the one visible in plain sight and the other excavated by the rest of us. We initially chose shovels to uncover the layers of history below the future urban garden. Soon we found out that mattocks are superior for digging all the rocks, bricks, glass, plastic foil, rusty bars and garden tools that have seen better days. The evidence we gathered confirmed the claims of a horticultural civilisation inhabiting the area in the past. We almost saw the forgotten allotments with their polytunnels and greenhouses as if they still existed, with their owners digging, shovelling, planting, and doing other GoodGymmy stuff. Historic gardening artefacts were not the only findings. Apart from the countless bottles, Madhan discovered interesting objects like an elephant figurine 🐘

Halfway through the task, we paused the hard work and philosophical chats with the other volunteers. It was break time ⏳, and again we were invited to treat ourselves to tea, coffee, fruit, biscuits and other snacks - including delicious pakoras and samosas, mmmmm 😋 It was a great time to meet other people who came to help out on the day. We resumed our tasks after the refreshment only to get damp immediately - as soon as we left the covered area, the rain started! 🌧️ It was not strong though, and couldn't discourage us from our GoodGymming. Most of us stayed till the very end of the event which ended with a photo session! There were three phones and one traditional camera used - we all remained in place patiently so that everyone could get their group photo. And say "peregrine falcon" instead of "cheese".

Today's session was a fun and rewarding activity and a chance to make a visible difference, make new connections and spread the word of GoodGym in Southall. We enjoyed it so much that we are going to show up the following day to help plant trees in the community garden.