In the aftermath of storm Darragh, no one knew who would be at Acton Junior parkrun this morning. Today, the volunteers were hardier than the runners with 20 helpers around the course compared to 16 finishers. The weather didn't even put off Santa Steph, who flew down from north pole, through the storm to be today's tail walker.

Steph didn't fly around the course, using his legs to run instead. On his way, he passed Joanna, Kash, Mohamed and Sevan who were marshalling around the course, Chikako who was today's VI guide, Chris, who did an expert job managing the busy funnel 😂 and Harvey who was timekeeping.

There were a few children who wished they'd stayed in bed - like the volunteers, probably. Most of the runners were happy to be there and equally happy to have finished and go to the park café for a warm drink afterwards.

The Saturday storm might have blown away litter and leaves and blown GoodGymers' hopes for fun, outdoor sessions in nature. But it has not blown the enthusiasm for doing good. When the wind and rain subsided just a bit, and the sky went dark, a masked GoodGymer ventured to Leeland Terrace in West Ealing to hunt down nasty litter they had seen on the run to Hanwell the other day. A detour to the plaza in front of Sainsbury's and fishing in the planters there resulted in two waste bags (thank you, LAGER Can, for providing them) so full that they started to rip! Another expedition with more rubbish bags (and maybe more GoodGymers) would be great, but tonight's trip already made a little bit of a difference.

At 3 pm the Friday service at Ealing Soup Kitchen was already wrapping up. The GoodGymers and regular volunteers worked smoothly together like a well-oiled machine to close the day. Steph was preparing the last takeaways for the clients who hadn't made it to the sit-down lunch service, and Kash was clearing and folding the tables.

As Jacquie left after a long day of prepping and serving food, Mohamed showed up and maintained the balance of GoodGymers: three. He joined Kash at the sinks to tackle the extra large cooking pots and scrape all the rice stuck to the bottom of the dishes. In the meantime, Steph put away equipment in the cupboards and wiped clean the worktops in the kitchen.

The team was so efficient that the kitchen area was shiny and sparkling in just 45 minutes! We look forward to another Friday at the ESK filled with GoodGymers contributing their time to those most vulnerable in the Ealing community.

Lunch service : Kash joined Jacquie and Steph Ducat in the dining area for a busy shift. The team Guaced on! Main course was rice with chicken served in sauce with vegetables and veggie option was rice with vegetables including seed weed! Then it was followed by the bread and butter pudding with custard and the team was on a roll!!Success as both Angela and the customers said that the team had raisin the roof on this pudding - best one made so far at ESK. Pudding was perfect : what made it so special ? The bread, butter, custard, cinnamon, secret ingredients? It was the team work that made it egg-cellent!!5 trays of pudding went!!! Meal is whey too good. The busy shift slowed down and the team could breathe and get ready to give take away food.

We were a small but mighty team in Hounslow last night, but we were more than a match for a 5km run and a huge task at Gunnersbury Park.

With newly minted run leader Chris taking us through our paces with a warm up, we were soon raring to go.

We quickly arrived at Gunnersbury Park and met up with Gus, before retrieving our fleet of barrows from the yard and setting off on the long, long walk to the wood chip pile.

Our mission for the evening was to disperse the woodchip over the waterlogged ground. Luckily Gus quickly identified the area in question by putting his foot directly in it, and we got cracking with the job.

With the scent of eucalyptus from the woodchip in the air, it was starting to feel very Christmassy which was a nice distraction from the high energy job. Talk about a full body workout! It soon became clear we were off the hook for fitness.

We talked about lots of exciting things coming up, including Florian and Gus' impending GoodGym milestones, future races including Alan's warm up ultra marathon in preparation for an ultra marathon, Kash's exciting mission on Saturday featuring pizza and Chris' expert knowledge of digital acronyms (SMH, anyone?)

Before long the pile of mulch had been reduced to nothing, and the dry feet of the people of Gunnersbury had been saved from muddy peril. We set off on the long walk back, stored our tools and set off for the bright lights of Chiswick.

This weekend there is a fun mission to spread the word about FoodCycle at a tricky time of year for many people, and if you can spare some time on the 15th, Hounslow FoodBox have asked for our help to raise funds.