With just over a month to go before the big move, it was all hands on deck at Cultivate on Wednesday evening.

We met with Romina, who had a long list of odd jobs that needed doing that evening in preparation for the move in the first week of July. Eleven of us were about tonight to help out. First of all, a big GoodGym Hounslow welcome to Bet who came along to her first session, and wasn’t put off by the madness and chaos! Secondly, it was a happy 100th to Jon (good deeds that is, not birthdays), who took pole position in the GoodGym charts this week (unlike his beloved Leicester City).

Romina had us working on all sorts of random tasks tonight… there were a few plants and weeds to be moved, all sorts of bits of kit that needed relocating or getting rid (including the lads up a ladder moving something that we aren’t even sure of what it is, even now). There were metal poles and cabers of wood that were relocated from one side of the site to the other, a giant crèche that needed emptying as well as two gigantic black bins of baby wood blocks!

Kash, Alan, Pippa and Luis did a wheely good job moving the wheely bins and the wheelbarrows full of unwanted off cuts between the dumping heap and the poly tunnel. At one point Divy was on the roof, watched by Chris on ladder control. Sevan was keeping busy sorting the tools out (and by that I mean the spanners, not Chris and Divy!). Tish was being her glove-ly self, introducing Bet to the madness and Jon was wearing wings whilst moving things.

In just over an hour, we’d made a lot of progress. The polytunnel was getting closer to being emptied, and Romina commented we should have done before and after photos!

As per GoodGym standard, we like to go to the pub after to celebrate. Although today we got trollied before hitting The Old Pack Horse… or at least the centurion Jon did! When we did make it to the pub, we were joined by Cookie, Florian, Remy and Michelle (aka those who couldn’t make the hard work part of the task, but were to attend for the cake)… of which Michelle had made a dazzling carrot cake, to celebrate Jon’s milestone. Although he had achieved 100 good deeds, Jon couldn’t quite achieve cake cutting perfection, with some questionable knife skills on show. Luckily for him (and baker Michelle), the cake was quite delicious and even the carrot cake sceptics enjoyed it. Jon appetit!

Today's chapter of the Great Move of Cultivate's Plant Nursery was hosted by GoodGym Ealing but had a strong team from GoodGym Hounslow: Pippa, Michelle and Luis, a last-minute addition recruited by Michelle. GoodGym Hammersmith & Fulham also sent reinforcements: the indispensable Divya. The whole team, including Ealing's Kash, already visited Plant Nursery on Wednesday but couldn't get enough of relocating plants who cannot walk themselves.

Romina from Cultivate wanted to start big and pointed us towards a huge barrel that had to be moved closer to the gate. We discovered that the big boy hadn't been to a toilet for a while and needed help emptying his bladder. The ladies pretended to look away while Luis tipped Mr Barrel to help it relieve itself after years of discomfort. The happy empty barrel rolled then cheerfully to begin a new life which started by the gate.

We're about to enter the jungle. - Michelle

Michelle, who had learned the hard way how it feels to have her ankles covered in insect bites, handed the whole team the Jungle Spray. We were now ready to encounter spiders lurking between plants and under bricks and planks we would be moving today.

The next task had us sweating in a polytunnel, sorting two cages of wooden planks. Romina was super fast to decide which pile a plank would land in: keep, maybe or ditch. We had to be quick moving them around!

Fast forward, we found ourselves relocating plant pots using the Morrisons trolley. We didn't find out how the Morrisons trolley became a resident of the Plant Nursery - it might have looked for a more fulfilling job than carrying someone's groceries at a supermarket. The plant pot move involved a fair amount of atchoos and regrets of not taking antihistamine tablets. Maybe the pot inhabitants didn't like the idea of being rehomed and fought with the only weapon they had to preserve their independence. We think that pollen spray should be illegal.

The Morrisons trolley has not retired after all the plants have been transported. Alongside a sturdy warehouse trolley, it served as a vehicle for bricks that had to be collected from one area and neatly arranged somewhere else. Divya was in charge of the building site where the bricks were dropped while the rest of the team engaged in a snake triage.

On a pallet where the bricks resided we found tangled water hoses 🐍 Just as with the wooden planks, Romina wanted to determine which pipes are good enough to keep and which are fatally injured and were to be thrown away. This time she left to us the decision about which snakes were ever going to see the new Plant Nursery. In the snake world, it was the survival of the fittest and Michelle had very little mercy for the flimsy-looking specimens. Those were thrown to oblivion (a.k.a the rubbish pile). As usual, we had lots of fun hurling things in the sky. Luis gave us a performance of his axe-throwing skills using a metal bar in place of the axe and a discarded pallet as a target.

Romina, busy as usual with coordinating tons of volunteer groups, had to head out to another site before the end of our task. She gave us a critical mission of securing the Plant Nursery. We turned off the sprinkler and locked up the place. It is now waiting for another batch of jolly volunteers to come and have fun while helping Cultivate to continue operating while their Plant Nursery is being turned into a building site.

It was an extra special session last night in Hounslow yesterday, as we celebrated the 100th good deed of our one and only Prof Alan - give him a whoop, give him a holler, give him a cheer! Alan, after hundreds of hours of gardening, shifting compost, mulching, painting and litter picking - not to mention all the miles run in between - you have well and truly earned your wings! We were also delighted to welcome Madhan from Ealing GoodGym for a very special milestone - a huge congratulations Madhan on reaching that magic 50 and earning yourself a brand new tshirt! It was great to welcome you to the Hounslow group.

We are dedicating a few of our Wednesday sessions to helping Cultivate London ahead of their relocation to a site down the road. Time is ticking for them to shift all their plants and other resources as the buildings developing the nursery site edge ever closer. We have a couple more Wednesday with them, and there is still plenty to do - but rest assured they are extremely grateful for the help. This morning I got this message from Romina:

"Just a quick message to say thank you very much to your group. We were amazed of what we were able to achieve at the end of the day, it might have been a petty task to sort and move pots but it made the difference. We are very proud of our connection with GG."

It's lovely to receive feedback like that and a good reminder that whatever the task is, we are making a difference. Well done, team!

Big thanks to Lucy for the Lion King/100 wings run report pun this week! It was close to being Michelle's pun for the title ('A task with huge POT-ential) - the inspiration for it was evident as soon as we arrived and found a looming pile of pots waiting to be sorted and stacked for transfer. There were pots as far as the eye could see, pink pots, square pots, giant and tiddly pots. As Lucy said, it was enough to drive us potty!

While most of the team were forming a highly effective pot sorting squad, Kash and Madhan were using their considerable strength to shift three bath tubs and other bits and pieces over to the school. There was a slight delay when we got there and I couldn't figure out how to open the gate, but luckily Madhan came to the rescue, swiped us straight in and saved the day.

Time ran away with us and before long we were overdue for our run back to base. It didn't take us long to get there and finish off the night with some stretches. Don't forget there are missions every weekend now until mid-June, so there is lots to choose from. Next week we'll be helping at Cultivate again, hope to see you there! Until then, have happy weeks everybody.