Last night’s GoodGym Hounslow mission began after a day where thunder had rattled windows, lightning cracked across the sky, and hailstones had come down hard. Surely (we hoped) the weather had got it all out of its system by now?

It had not.

Spirits were high as we arrived at the task and got stuck into an eclectic evening of gardening, tidying and creative endeavours. We split into teams and spread out across the site.

Maxime, Tish, Michelle and Steph tackled the weeding operation, bravely taking on stubborn weeds and overgrown patches that had clearly enjoyed the recent rain a little too much.

Meanwhile, Chris, Emily and Alanna were busy clearing away piles of wet leaves — filling sack after sack with slippery mulch.

There was the evening’s most artistic assignment - Fran and Lucy took charge of transforming an old tyre destined for a new life as a raised flower bed. The mission was to entirely wrap it in rope to create something both practical and beautiful. It was certainly a first for GG Hounslow, but then we're always up for something new.

All systems were go… until the heavens reopened.

Rain came down suddenly and relentlessly, soaking tools, gloves and enthusiasm. But in true GoodGym style, we carried on as long as we could, squeezing every possible minute out of the session before the weather finally won.

The good news is that there’s definitely more to come. That tyre still needs to be completely wrapped, and now the big design question remains: do we continue with the same colour rope, switch it up with something different, or fully commit to a rainbow masterpiece?

As we packed up and headed home beneath a colourful sky, it felt very much as though the weather itself was offering a pretty strong hint…

Kymm and I arrived at Waterman's Park in the May sunshine ready to get stuck in helping local volunteers to maintain the green space.

We were joined by Gus and Luis and were briefed on today's tasks; give the dragon path that the volunteers have created in the middle of the park another trim to keep the shape, or weeding and pulling up lots of long grass threatening to steal all the light from the plants.

In the warm sunshine and with the ground dry from lack of rain it was thirsty work. The volunteers were happy to have our help and assured us several plants would now survive with more access to sunlight, and hopefully a long drink.

We needed cold drinks after an hour in the sunshine, before Gus headed over to Hanwell Hootie and the rest of us headed home for a lie down!