Do you remember the story from the most recent session at Popesfield Allotments, where I noted that GoodGym Ealing hadn't visited Cultivate London's plant nursery for two years? Well, such a gap didn't happen this time! Our team was back within three weeks since the April 2026 session, as we had left a job unfinished, and we don't like that.

So, what do we like? The sound of weeds' roots being seamlessly pulled through a membrane, oh yes! This Tuesday evening task was filled with satisfying ambient noises and a sense of achievement.

Conor, Sevan, Steph Ducat and Kash ran from Ealing Broadway to meet another runner - Harvey, cyclist James and walker Anna.

Anna arrived for her first GoodGym session after being recruited by our mutual friend from LAGER Can - what a brilliant turn of events! Anna likes a good litter pick, but nothing beats a green task closer to nature. She arrived ready with small weeding tools and even offered others her spare gloves, which astonished the regulars - usually it's the other way around with the newbies! Neither gloves nor tools were really necessary as the weeds were extremely easy to pull by hand, and that was an utterly satisfying sensation.

With a team of seven and an hour of pulling, sweeping, bagging and pallet-lifting, we finished clearing the entire membrane area, filling two tonne bags with garden waste. Minus a few holes (made by weeds, not us!), the membrane looked like new.

"You could eat dinner from that!" - Harvey.
"Is it dinner time?"

Next Tuesday, we'll have more gardening to do as we'll be helping gardener Cliff maintain the peaceful space for church-goers and residents of South Ealing at St Mary's churchyard. Sign up now!

Friends of Waterman’s Park had a grand vision. Forget boring planters or a generic wildflower meadow. Enter the Dragon... path! The Green Dragon Path was going to be planted in a wildflower area, currently overtaken by grass. The creative vision came with a design on paper - what better way to attract adventurers than a map to a dragon’s treasure waiting to be uncovered!

Maria walked all the way from Hackney to Brentford to be part of this grand community endeavour, created in partnership with Green Dragon Primary School (how cool is that for a school name!). Amy, although new to GoodGym and West London, already had a couple of local volunteering tasks under her belt and couldn’t miss this one, so she cycled to Waterman’s Park too. Finally, Sevan and Kash - already having found some dragon figurines in the morning and gone on a Hobbit-style quest at noon - were up for anything that involved dragons and magic. All four GoodGymers were exactly where they needed to be.

After a bit of anticipation - while the visionary lead explained the approach, the mower was connected, the right tools arrived, and parents with children joined the effort to bring the dragon to life - everyone got to planting.

The soil was dry and hard, full of rocks and bricks, and it wasn’t easy at all to dig into, even for the smallest flowers. Luckily, the more powerful tools soon arrived and changed the course of the session. Sevan and Kash, already familiar with mattocks and pickaxes, were delighted to see the right tools to break through the impenetrable ground. One of the volunteers, Seyed - an embodiment of skill and strength - took mattocking to the next level, helping others dig holes and unearthing an impressive block of concrete, which later found its resting place in the Thames.

Maria and Amy, initially reluctant to admit their undiscovered love for hacking into the ground with a mattock - saying things like “You’re the strong one, you do it” or “I prefer a smaller, more gentle tool” - quickly changed their minds once they gave it a go. The mattock and pickaxe proved irresistible, and soon the pair were sending tremors through the soil that seemed to awaken the sleeping dragon. The mystical creature came to life, with flowers and spiky ornamental grasses shaping its winding body, head, and fishy tail. What a wonderful creation for the community it was!

One of the greatest quests in Middlesex (not to be confused with Middle-earth) began with the Wizard Sevan the Wise and Kash the Hobbit knocking at Mrs L's door in Hanwell. When a wizard knocks on your door, you don't quite know what to expect, and Mrs L seemed rightfully confused at the sight of the quite otherworldly-looking pair. Sevan explained that they had come to perform a bit of garden wizardry, and Mrs L let them walk through her house into the back garden.

In the backyard, there were weeds to take out from beds and paving, leaves to sweep, and trees and other plants to trim. There was plenty to be done, but only a modest collection of tools to be found in the shed: a children-sized spade, broken loppers and a small fork without a handle. Surely, fantasy heroes could work with that. A more pressing subject, though, was the back gate.

Mrs L insisted there was only one way the garden waste should leave the garden: through the back gate. The problem was that the gate would only open a foot or so, blocked by bulging paving beneath it. On the other side, fly-tipped rubbish had piled up into a solid barrier, blocking the way as if the garden had quietly decided that no one shall pass. No one, that is, except a hobbit.

Who could better serve as the expedition’s “burglar” than Kash - perhaps the closest thing to a real hobbit you could find in Ealing. Kash squeezed through the gate (not an easy feat!) and found herself in a heavily littered green tunnel. Beneath her feet lay fly-tipped bundles of branches, above her, a canopy of overgrown ivy. Kash used her most unlikely but essential power - her short stature - to slip through where others couldn’t. She pushed past a cluster of buckets and pots and soon reached a fork in the alleyway. The left-hand path had been cleared of overgrowth, and through it she could already see the bars of an exit gate at the far end. The right-hand side, by contrast, looked like an impenetrable thicket of brambles. Kash had overheard Mrs L's neighbours mention nettles, foxholes, barbed wire, and all manner of nastiness beyond it - a route no one would reasonably attempt.

Kash tried the left-hand route first, Mrs L's key in hand, but the lock refused to yield. No match. So she turned back. What else could she do? Armed with broken loppers, she carved a narrow path through the brambles on the right-hand side exit, inch by inch, until she reached yet another gate. This time, the key turned. The lock was open. And just like that, the path to the street was revealed.

Meanwhile, back in the garden…

Sevan the Wise, alongside the kind neighbours, had been engaged in a different kind of quest: one of persuasion. With calm words and practical reasoning, they revealed to Mrs L a truth long overlooked. There was, in fact, a far simpler way for the green waste to disappear from the back garden: through the house.

And so, when Kash returned triumphant from her journey - having gone there and back again - the adventurers were granted passage through the house, to dispose of the trimmings into a green bin kindly lent by one of the neighbours. The neighbour also equipped them with a broom and a shovel, which made it possible to sweep the weeds that Sevan had ruthlessly obliterated from the paving with a hoe.

A heroic quest. A path revealed. And, ultimately… entirely unnecessary. Still, every great story needs its hobbit.

Kash and Sevan started the day with a mission that wasn't too far away. Mrs T had a bramble patch to be cleared to reduce her anxiety and risk of falls. The brambles weren't the only thing that concerned Mrs T as she said that her husband, now in a care home, had been a big hoarder. Kash and Sevan would find signs of hoarding and other unusual behaviour while they were chopping away.

The plants and trees in Mrs T's garden looked nice and very mature, except for the bramble patch that had exploded next to her back door. It was in danger of spreading and taking over more of the garden, so it needed to be nipped in the bud. Possibly through Mr T's hoarding, Mrs T kept appearing with a wide range of useful and not useful items to help the team. Some rusty shears did turn out to be helpful, while saws and hunting knives were given a pass.

As Kash and Sevan cut further into the patch, they found some unexpected items. First to be uncovered was something that looked like a metal chair. Mrs T explained that it was her sun lounger. Apparently her husband had at one time emptied everything out of the shed and left it in the back garden. The brambles had long since swallowed those items up. Next up was a fan, then a(nother) bow saw, a dragon statue, a car battery and a bottle of motor oil. None of them had done well out of living outside. Kash and Sevan freed them from the spiky vines, but they were probably destined for disposal.

The GoodGymers crammed as many brambles as they could into a black bin so that they could move the cuttings through the house to the front. As Mrs T's bin filled, she called a neighbour and borrowed theirs too and by the end of the task, most of the invaders had been removed and both garden waste bins filled up.

By the end of the mission, Mrs T felt relieved that her garden was back under control. There were still many hoarded items next to the house, probably hiding a lot of brambles underneath. Decluttering those and findimg out what was hiding below would be a future mission and another journey of discovery for some GoodGymers.

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.