Ijo joined the GoodGym gang from the morning shift at 1 pm and stayed in the kitchen area alongside Jacquie. She had been on serving duty and then jumped straight to washing the dishes. The ESK-savvy Jacquie didn't need to be told even once what to do next, she mastered the smooth flow from one important task to the next. While the other volunteers were still chatting and finishing off their lunch, Jacquie was spotting the tables that needed tidying up and wiping them right away.

Kash was operating in the other rooms: first on clothes, then the food parcel distribution. The regular volunteer Arul had let Kash know that at 14:45 they were going to take the chicken and frozen pizzas out of the freezer and add them to the shopping bags for the clients. Arul took the role on the frontline, collecting clients' tickets (which some of them had misplaced), and Kash handed out the cooking and non-cooking grocery bags.

Once the food parcels were finished, it was time for the raffle with unique prizes: the Vanish detergent powder!

This Friday's Ealing Soup Kitchen morning session was Jacquie's first time as a chef alongside Angela. They had been frying chicken and veggie sausages, and later in the day, when the volunteers got to try lunch, the sausage turned out to be perfectly prepared! Well done Jacquie! You may end up hired as Angela's new chef!

In the meantime, Kash, who came to ESK incognito with her work colleagues, has been sorting clothes for display with regular volunteers: Doreen, Layla and Javier. Doreen had declared she was very bad with names but remembered Kash's very well when she had to call her to fold some menswear items. Meanwhile, Javier revealed his strategy to never forget names: all the ladies were Marias - apart from Doreen who was Auntie.

Shortly before service started, Kash was called to the kitchen duty to help with packing surplus onions for freezing and preparing gravy. Sausages have been all fried by that time and awaited the 1 pm lunch start in the cosy interior of the oven.

Jacquie arrived earlier and stayed for the lunch service. Lots of fun today despite it being busy. Ijo joined and was on top of the cleaning in the kitchen. Chicken or veg stir fry in wraps with salad were served to the clients.

Nishy made a come back at the ESK and started off with doing the food parcels. Then joined Jacqui with sorting out clothes. Finished with service chicken or veg stir fry in wraps with salad. It was very busy today.

Sunny but cool sunday morning and 2 goodgymers made their way to Pitshanger Junior Parkrun. Jacquie was on barcode(1st time) and Steph Ducat was marshal at point 1. We had some speedy juniors today and 58 crossed the line : well done. At one stage, Steph could hear some crying/gossipping: was that the noise of the birds 🐦 flying or chirping around? No it wasn't and today we had some smaller juniors with tears and decided not to finish but they will be back...well done for doing part of the race.