After a sonic-speed run to volunteer at the junior parkrun, Steph and Kash swapped their morning coffee (well, Kash did - Steph already had time for two of them!) for a walk to a mission in East Acton.

They were off to help Miss G tackle her neglected front and back gardens to make a positive impact on her mental health. The back garden was a priority, with brambles all over, and a massive fridge and some chairs thrown in the middle.

Seating on the thrones of thorns didn't seem like a good impact on anyone's wellbeing or backsides, so Steph removed the chairs, then put on his mighty bramble gloves to pack away the spiky cuttings Kash was about to produce. Kash grabbed the only pair of shears the two had found at the time and started chopping.

The onslaught on the brambles uncovered a mower, a boomerang (?), a fridge that could fit a human or two (no Harrison Ford found inside) and the only plant that was supposed to grow in the garden. The GoodGymers then raked all the cuttings and bagged them into black sacks.

The back garden looked transformed, and the pair still had half an hour to spare. Steph and Kash faced a big decision: should they make a visible difference in the front garden now, or make the transformation at the back more sustainable? You see, the brambles might have been cut to the ground, but their roots remained, which guaranteed new growth over the warmer months. The GoodGymers refused the temptation of easy front garden wins and opted for doing one job properly. They stayed in the back garden and dug out all the bramble roots they could reach.

Miss G came out to see the result of their 90-minute exploits and was utterly shocked by the change.

Gosh! It looks like a different place! - Miss G.

She couldn't believe what a duo of dedicated GoodGymers could achieve in such a short time and said "gosh!" and "thank you" at least ten times more. Steph and Kash made Miss G very happy, but also left some fun for another GoodGym team to tackle the front garden, hoping that their successors would spend the following mission doing an equally proper job as they had strived to do!

Chilly Sunday morning and yes children and volunteers went out for a Junior parkrun. As the goodgmyers were early, they helped Jane setup the course. Signs were given and sone arrows were the wrong way, then a volunteer suggested to have the funnel the other way. Could we have an original park run today and have it going the other way round? Backwards running too? That would be fun and confusing for all. We decided not to go for the backwards run but for the original way of running and swapped the arrows tk the corext way. 25 Juniors collected tokens from Alan. Kash was then barcode scanning. During this time, Maria, Harveyand Steph Ducatwere making sure the children were running to correct way and also giving loads of high 5's. Then Chikako followed the last runner as she was tail walking with her daughter.

3 goodgymers met on a cold windy morning in front of Ealing Broadway Station to have a chatty but speed run to Acton Junior parkrun. We did a small loop in the park to end up doing 3.5km. Sonic speed and we were there before any volunteers. in the distance, we noticed Jane, todays ru director so we had plenty of time to help her setup for parkrun

As Kash and Sevan removed their shoes, Ms L told them to keep them on as her cats might have left "presents" on the floor. The pair wondered how bad it could be? They'd surely be able to see and dodge any landmines. It made sense for Ms L to give the warning though as she was visually impaired. That's why she'd asked GoodGym to help her sort and pack her belongings ahead of an upcoming home move.

Everything looked well prepared with Ms L's belongings in bags and boxes. This apparent readiness to move hid a lot of work as Ms L had only been able to group together similar types of items, like clothes. The GoodGymers were needed to help identify what each specific item was, for example describing the type, pattern or brand of a piece of clothing to categorise it and help Ms L decide if she wanted to keep in. There were also vintage clothing items in Ms L's collection that she wanted to sell rather than donate as part of downsizing and decluttering.

Ms L's 3 long haired 😺😼😸 also had a keen interest in what was each bag, so Ms L, Kash and Sevan had to keep shooing them away to not get their gorgeous fur on everything. The cats were particularly keen on vintage clothes and jewellery and, as 2 of them were named after glamorous 1960's models, that made total sense. Eventually, the containers with clothes in them were sealed up to keep them safe from the fur and the claws.

Of less interest to the furry friends (the cats, not Kash and Sevan) was a lot of photography equipment that Sevan described to Ms L, some books and some gruesome looking figurines with skeletal faces and parts of their skulls missing. Only later did the pair figure out that they were a scary set of chess pieces!

As it turned out, there wasn't anything on the floor to put the GoodGymers' socks in danger and all the cats, apart from being a bit mischievous, were well behaved and very loveable. It was hard to leave the cats at the end of the mission, but some donations were ready to drop off at a local charity shop. A return visit may have to be arranged to get some more kitty time 😻.

Ms G was a keen gardener, constantly looking for ways to improve her skills, taking gardening and art courses to make her backyard look stunning. Unfortunately, the soil in her garden wasn't great. The easiest alternative was to invest in potted plants.

When Sevan and Kash entered Ms G's kitchen, they had a feeling as if they were visiting a greenhouse in Kew Gardens, although they were in Stoke Newington. The kitchen was full of baby aloe vera plants. There were also some unusual specimens like the leaf of life from Jamaica. All that greenery was staying indoors for the winter, but the plants started to outgrow their small pots and needed to be moved outside for repotting.

Sevan and Kash descended to the back garden through steep, spiral stairs, carrying small pots with plants, and found four large pots and copious amounts of soil downstairs. Together with Ms G, they quickly transferred the aloe vera and the leaf of life to the large pots, then carried them back to Ms G's own "Temperate House". Having extra time, they did some speed weeding and sweeping of the paved area in the back garden.

Ms G was grateful for the help and shared with the GoodGymers that she'd been thinking about a larger-scale project than her plant pots: raised beds. Sevan and Kash didn't know whether building raised beds could become a GoodGym mission, but if it did, it would have been an epic one!

A super easy milk & smoothie delivery from Sainsbury's to Mr R left me hungry for more challenges. When chatting to Mr R, I found out about a mysterious issue with his phone, which the local phone store wasn't able to help with. Mr R said he was unable to access some websites, especially those advertised on YouTube. After a quick look at his phone, the verdict was that his browser was perfectly fine loading websites such as GoodGym's, or even commercial ones, if accessed directly, but refused to display the pages trying to sell Mr R all sorts of stuff or hook him into playing online games. I confirmed Mr R's suspicion that his browser seemed to be protecting him from aggressive advertisement trying to prey on his attention, and we both concluded it's probably best to leave the "issue" unresolved, since Mr R could still access Amazon for deliveries, YouTube for learning new things and some fun, and other websites he really needed.

Donna Kashot of Ealing was a knight errant who had run out of adventures in her hometown. It shouldn’t come as a surprise - it was Boxing Day and all the dragons and giants preferred to stay home to feast on leftover turkey and Christmas pudding. Disappointed by the lack of opportunities for chivalric exploits in Ealing, Donna Kashot decided to venture to Westminster. She learned about a lady in distress, Mrs A, besieged in a tower, without a food supply.

On Boxing Day morning, Donna Kashot sent a dove with a message to Mrs A, to find out where to find food for Mrs A. Aldi was the response. But all-the-Aldis were closed on the day! What bad luck for adventures! A couple of dove exchanges later, the knight and the lady decided that Donna Kashot would set off for the adventure the following day after her two quests in Stoke Newington. So be it!

The following day, Donna Kashot, after defeating man-eating plants, then conquering an army of undead and breaking from the charm of three fluffy, giant beasts, ran 9km South from Hackney to the Westminster area. If you want to know why she hasn't ridden her warhorse instead, the poor thing had been eaten earlier by a man-eating plant that wasn't paying attention to how many legs the devoured creature had!

It already seemed like a pretty heroic day, but the knight’s word had to be kept, and the food had to be delivered. After navigating the crowded Camden Lock Market and the closed parts of the towpath, Donna Kashot finally reached Aldi and found out the rye sourdough bread was sold out. With the rest of the food in her bag, Donna Kashot went to a Middle Eastern store to buy flatbread instead and a kilo of yogurt. Now was the time to head to Mrs A’s confinement in the tower. But when the knight errant arrived at the castle, the light was off, and no one responded to the knocking.

Donna Kashot sent her trusted dove on a search for the missing lady, and the bird brought back a shocking message:

Your princess is in another castle!

The knight learned that Mrs A, together with her sister, was now in a totally different place! Undeterred by such minor obstacles (excited by the challenge, actually!), Donna Kashot walked through the dark streets, full of ghouls and ghosts, and finally discovered the safe place, where Mrs A and her sister hid from the danger.

Having fulfilled her overdue chivalric deed, Donna Kashot wished the sisters a happy New Year and ran to Paddington to descend into the underground for more adventures to come.

A perfect Christmas Eve task cannot get better than what five eager GoodGymers did at a secret location in Ealing this year! Wrapping presents, peeling veggies for a Christmas meal, and prepping non-alcoholic Grinch mojito - all of that for the next day’s Christmas Dinner for young care leavers, who would otherwise be alone this season.

Most of the GoodGymers were on the kitchen duty: Harvey and Maria got stuck into spud-bashing, exchanging insights about parkrun and festivals. Seema peeled so many carrots that she would remember them until Christmas 2026. Kash, after wiping hundreds of plates, was removing the outer leaves of Brussels sprouts and carving the sign of the cross at their base. Why? Apparently, it makes them cook faster!

Meanwhile, Sevan creatively packed presents for care leavers, then left with the organiser, Pam, for a quest to deliver delicious coffee for all the volunteers.

For many young care leavers, Christmas can be a reminder of what they don’t have. That’s why it felt so rewarding to help a small team of volunteers create a day that makes those vulnerable young people feel not alone and that they have a community around them. We hope this year’s Ealing Christmas Dinner event will be delightful!