The first session of May with Care4Calais brought a lot of clothes sorting. A regular activity for the Care4Calais volunteers. New donations had been gathered from other groups all over London and now needed to be sized and squeezed into the Ealing stock room.

The new donation bags were hauled into the sorting room where Steph, Kash and Sevan worked their way though each one. The first few contained a lot of women's dresses, a cat suit, a extra large jump suit and a bride's maid shirt, probably from a hen do. The bride's maid shirt and everything else needed to be measured up and stored in the right place... meaning overflow bags as the stock boxes were - still - mostly full to bursting.

Next up were the men's donations, which were much less interesting than the women's, as usual. There were some nice denim jackets and a leather-ish one whose best days were in the past. It was leaving a trail of black flakes all over the floor, so it went into the pile of rags to get rid of. Sevan went to help find sports clothes and PJs for children, aided by an unexpected find. There was a small bag labelled "Women's Pyjamas" in exactly the size he was looking for. That never happens at Care4Calais.

Less seasonal pieces like scarves and thermals were put to one side as making people feel toastier wasn't a priority in May. Other unusual finds included a magic cape and a Minion top that had everyone saying "bananas" for the rest of the task.

Kash and Sevan found task owner Joseph rebuilding his energy levels after a morning of guiding new volunteers. They were a bit green, so needed a lot of support. By contrast, team GoodGym apparently knew what to do to help Joseph plant some epic dudhi:

"We just need to know how deep and wide [the holes need to be]." - Sevan
"You know how to dig holes. You've dug some BIG holes in the past." - Joseph

It was quite warm on the south facing plot. Inside the polytunnel was another level though, reaching 40C+ through the day. It was perfect to grow warm weather vegetables and the team were shown tomatoes, chillies, okra, ginger, sweet potatoes and more, all growing in the soil. As impressive as that was, the GoodGymers were grateful that they were digging outside, even if they were under the afternoon sun.

Joseph had a contact who would give him free dudhi seeds and all that Joseph needed to start his dudhi enterprise were 12 holes, 30cm wide and 45cm deep. After days without rain, the ground was hard, so a hose was set on the trellis covered planting patch to make digging easier.

"I didn't think I was going to get muddy today." - Sevan
"When you come here, you always get muddy". - Joseph

Before they could start digging, the first job was to clear the weeds from the plot. Weeds were having a field day all over the allotment, so everyone turned over the soil to clear it, finding some tough roots from nearby trees hiding underground.

Kash and Sevan eventually did start digging, slowly scooping the wet clay soil out of the ground, dodging around the trellis poles. It was hard going and it was definitely muddy. The tree roots caused problems again too, needing to be broken through or worked around. As holes were completed, Joseph poured his special potting mix into each one, preparing them for the big dudhi planting day tomorrow.

The Early May Bank Holiday weekend sounds like a time when everyone wants to get away to enjoy a break, right? Wrong! A revolutionary team of 12 GoodGymers descended on Horsenden Farm, redefining Italian cuisine and the rules of landscaping.

Such impressive numbers guaranteed at least a double task, so the team split into two. Sevan, Richard, Thaiza, Amy, Maxime and Afshin went up Horsenden Hill to marvel at the views while dealing with treacherous spikes, while Penny, Danny, Kat, Steph Ducat, Augustin and Kash headed down to the car park to make a very special lasagne.

The first team continued the task started last month at the top of the hill. The goal was to remove as much prickly hawthorn as possible to make space for the Horsenden cows to graze and enrich the ecosystem with their wonderful cow pies - a buffet for countless insects, fungi, and bacteria, and a source of nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium for plants to grow.

With thick gloves and loppers, the six GoodGymers finished off the leftover hawthorn from April and moved on to the next patch, where the newest addition to the team, Amy, spotted a memorial sign and cut through the spiky plants, determined to find out what was written on it. What a start! Amy met us last month at another outdoor task, so we knew she'd fall in love with losing herself in Horsenden's nature. Welcome, Amy!

The hilltop team destroyed the second hawthorn patch in no time and moved on to make a start at the third one, which they had to leave unfinished. Throwing the tangled, spiky cuttings over the fence and pushing them down was not a quick and easy job as one might think. The group made great progress, with some hawthorn still left behind for the next volunteer group.

The second team was a team of cooks. As you can imagine, things can get tricky when you get too many of them. To add to the complexity of the intricate lasagne recipe we had to follow, we were boosted by two additional cooks (other Horsenden volunteers). Luckily, Elsa, our task owner and chef, joined the group to masterfully coordinate the execution of her staple recipe:

Compost Lasagne

(Serves: 1 happy ecosystem)

Prep time: As long as it takes to fill a wheelbarrow
Cook time: A few months (slow food at its finest)

Ingredients

• 4 parts “green waste” 🌿 (plant trimmings + signature “lasagne sh*ts” a.k.a. manure)
• 6 parts woodchip 🪵
• A willing team of GoodGymers

Equipment

• Pitchfork 🍴
• Shovel 🥄
• Wheelbarrow 🛒

Method

1. Lay down a generous base of lasagne sh*ts. This is your rich foundation.
2. Sprinkle a layer of plant waste over the top. Think of it as your herby middle layer.
3. Cover with a thick layer of woodchip to seal everything in and keep things nicely balanced.
4. Drizzle a light splash of compost béchamel (questionable brown liquid) over the layer.
5. Keep layering: manure, greens, woodchip, 2 to 3 times, or until your compost lasagne reaches impressive heights.
6. Let it rest - leave your masterpiece to slowly “cook” down into beautiful compost.

Bon appétit (for the soil)! 🌍

Chef’s tip

The secret ingredient is teamwork and not taking yourself too seriously.

After assembling three impressive lasagne, we left nature to do the rest of the cooking. We then all headed for a well-deserved team lunch, which offered an equally unconventional take on Italian cuisine: pizza with a pickle and egg!

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

It wouldn't be a proper Friday evening without my usual 7km run (this time twice via Gunnersbury Park) and shop for Mr G. Among other products, the list featured two types of fish: salmon and breaded cod, also sweetheart cabbage.

A very sunny evening saw us gathering in front of Chiswick Town Hall, with fitness-leader-in-training Ariane nervously leading the group through a warm up session. Some strong winds had caused Chiswick House to have to close the grounds early, so we were off to some last minute litter picking work down at Kew Bridge as an alternative. We had an easy 1.5k run down to the river to meet up with the rest of the team.

Most importantly, there were lots of celebrations to be had this evening! First for Michelle, Lucy, and Remy (with us in spirit) for completing the London Marathon at the weekend, and then for Steph for reaching the impressive milestone of 1000 good deeds! We welcomed Chris to his first GoodGym session; welcome! He was given a quick run down of all things GG Hounslow (e.g, do you prefer Waitrose or M&S? Do you like Gails? Here’s the time Luis found… nevermind.)

Then on to the task at hand. However, we met our next challenge when we discovered that the canoe club had already set off for their evening paddle, taking the key to the equipment shed with them! But we’re not to be put off that easily. As Ana sprinted away to get some bin bags from the local Sainsbury’s, the group had a quick round of fitness Simon Says (well done Lucy for tricking everyone into not doing burpees) before we made ourselves useful having a general weed around the area.

Once Ana was back with an assortment of bin bags, we had a speedy litter pick, including gathering up a derelict rug, and making a phone call to the experts to deal with some more unsavory finds.

Despite the last minute changes, we still managed to fill five bin bags and clear the paving by the draw dock. Great work everyone! All that was left was to finish with a run back to the town hall and a quick stretch. Proof that it's actually quite hard to stop GoodGymers en masse doing something useful!