On a hot, sunny Saturday, the June edition of the HANGOT workday took us to Elthorne Terraces Orchard (or the one "by the Bambi") to deal with unfair competition against fruit trees. Hemlock, brambles, nettles, burdock - we didn't want to see any of that around the orchard tree trunks. Another problem was caused by the fruit trees themselves - tree suckers and self-seeded saplings were stealing nutrients from the originally planted trees and had to be removed.

Six regulars from the HANGOT crew: Mirjam, Clive, Hilary, Magda, Chris and Brian were joined by four GoodGymers, making the team size a decent, round number! The towpath was a lovely route to get to the task. Penny walked to the session while Christos, Steph Ducat and Kash ran different distances to reach the orchard. Steph arrived early, as usual, and Mirjam put him on his favourite watering duty to keep him busy before others showed up.

Walking down the canal path towards Brentford, the GoodGymers saw a pair of swans with five cygnets. Clive said the bird couple had been trying to have babies for a long time, facing challenges like a flooded nest and soggy eggs, and, finally, was lucky to glide upstream with a line of their little ones between them. What a sight it was!

At Elthorne Terraces we saw more examples of nature thriving, such as a quince tree producing plenty of fruit! They weren't ripe yet, of course, but we learned where the quince spot was - a handy knowledge when the foraging season comes! Life does not always prevail - at Elthorne Terraces, we found out that one of the fruit trees had died, and we have been chosen to help it with its last journey. Christos sawed the tree, and Kash chucked its trunk into the bushes like a javelin. Farewell tree! May the circle of life make good use of your remains!

The summer is looking fantastic, and we want to take advantage of long days in June to help HANGOT more than once a month! Join us on Monday in a week's time for a work evening at the canalside orchards - sign up here!

The weather forecast this Saturday was not as optimistic as the attitudes of eight GoodGymers who showed up at the morning session at Horsenden Farm. Even without the pre-task cup of coffee, everyone would be buzzing with excitement, ready to begin the day with a dose of exercise in fresh air with earthy, rural notes.

Among the team, there was an impressive number of new starters - but you would not have guessed they were not seasoned GoodGymers! Owen was no stranger to farm work and proved his experience later, suggesting that mattock was the best tool for heavy digging. Jenny was thrilled about all sorts of jobs and was the first one to learn the new skill of wood splitting. Eleanor was equally happy to take up different challenges, including carrying a heavy, damaged picnic bench out of the seating area.

The rain held off for most of the morning. Sevan and Owen kicked off the session by moving poles to the pig enclosure area, where they would be used to secure the fences. The piglets started turning into strong, clever beasts, who began planning their great escape, so prevention was key.

The rest of the team was guided by the volunteer boss, Elsa, to the timber storage spot in the woods. The job was to move firewood down the hill, while not getting eaten by the Gruffalo, to the pizza oven area. After all, there's no pizza without fire. Steph, Eleanor and Jen were wheelbarrowing the logs, Maxime and Kash took turns splitting the wood, and Penny was arranging the split pieces into the storage bays.

When Owen and Sevan rejoined the team, log splitting became a bit of a bottleneck, so part of the crew was sent on a quest to relocate an old picnic bench. Later, another small squad was formed to attempt to remove two tree stumps from a soil heap. That ambitious plan had to be cancelled as the tree trunks - although chopped - were well-rooted and far from rotting.

The first raindrops started to fall when the GoodGymers were finishing organising the last logs and sticks of reasonable sizes into the wood storage bays. It was time to order coffee, pizza and craft beer and sit around chatting about all things GoodGym and beyond.

Whether you enjoyed or missed this Horsenden Farm volunteering day, worry not! The sessions come back every first Saturday of the month. and you can sign up for the very next one here. We hope to see you in July!

Sunny Saturday morning and 2 usual Goodgymers Penny and Steph Ducat were joined by Mira who ran 5km and new member Ashley for his 1st mission. Small group but very efficient on the day. Elsa welcomed everyone and gave us a task. Todays mission was to wheel barrows with some manure down to the car park and spread a thin layer on the pill of building up green vegetation. Once layer done, time to wheelbarrow woodchip from the bottom of the carpark on top of the manure hill. Seems easy, but the hill was a challenge as uneven, steep and with fresh manure. The 4 goodgymers relayed each other with filling the wheelbarrows, running up the hill and spreading the different layers. Our trainers not smelling nice today and have some different colours added to them. We produced a layer cake style hill. After a group photo, we went to see the new pigs that have been introduce at the farm. Obviously that wanted a belly rub and the dogs also kept following us looking for treats.Then it was time to relax and get food ....pizza for most of us.

Four GoodGymers and Friends of Grove Farm, Anna and Mike, started the day by venturing into the wilderness of the woodlands near Sudbury Hill. Surprisingly, they encountered a familiar face in the woods!

Dr. Livingstone, I presume?

It was not exactly Dr. Livingstone, but Sue, another volunteer helping various causes in the area. Sue and Anna launched an expedition to eradicate litter in a different part of Grove Farm park, while others stayed to shed some light on the reason why visitors were avoiding the green space.

Mike explained that residents reported feeling unsafe entering Grove Farm because the sides of the path were overgrown. Who knew what dangers could be lurking behind the bushes? A leopard? A drunk? A mugger? Today's job was to open the sides of the path so that park visitors could see there was nothing there - or to make sure no predators could hide in the shrubs anymore.

Penny was cutting overhanging branches obscuring the view, Steph Ducat was lopping the thicker branches on the ground that Kash could not raze with a hedge trimmer, and Sevan was collecting all the cuttings and constructing a dead hedge. Mike was doing a little bit of everything, and, of course, directing the operation.

The 90-minute session was productive and filled with chats about safaris, the Maasai jumping dance, and baby-friendly socials at Grove Farm. We are excited to see what the future holds!