A challenge was waiting in Mr R's garden, a petrol mower. It had "Easy Start" emblazoned on it, which may or may not have been true. Mr R claimed it was better than his previous model

"Let's see how good you are at starting" - Mr R

There was only one way to find out. A minute later, partly burned exhaust fumes were wafting around the garden. Nice work Honda (and Kash)!

Kash began mowing the lawn and Mr R had a surprise for Sevan, a well stocked shed containing plenty of tools including a battery powered strimmer. Mr R wanted everything in the flower bed nearest the house to go, which would be Sevan's job. Grass, bushes, bluebells... everything was to be strimmed to the ground. Looking carefully, there were hidden dangers. Statuettes were lurking amongst the plants and needed to be removed before chopping started.

The strimmer was good with grass, so-so with thick bluebell leaves and no good with bushes, so Sevan went back to the tool shed to get some shears and secateurs. In this case, the manual tools worked better. Sevan chopped everything down to size while chatting away to Mr R about his sporting past, the history of the area and Laurel and Hardy, who Mr R was a big fan of. To Kash, they looked identical to characters called Flip and Flap. Mr R said that Kash and Sevan reminded him of the slapstick duo, but who was Laurel and who was Hardy? 🤷

With the main jobs complete, Kash went bramble hunting to clear them from flower beds at the back and sides of the garden, with Sevan joining at the end to complete the task. They were good at starting and good at finishing, leaving Mr R happy with his garden. Success!

After a 1st session in the morning and a quick lunch before running again to the 2nd mission of the day, the 3 Goodgymers with supernatural forces : Kash,Sevan and Steph Ducat arrived at their destination to meet another Emma. Tamzin welcomed the crew and Emma was shown the ropes at Care4Calais. Tamzin mentioned that the numbers have decreased as the council was using other partners too alongside Care4Calais. Kash, Sevan and Emma prepared packs with the usual socks, undies, tshirts, hoodies, trousers but today had a twist...put a silly jumper in the pack. Steph Ducat was with Tamzin and prepared 7 packs that were requested to be delivered to those who needed clothes. As some bags were returned, they then had to separate the clothes and put them back in the correct boxes by gender and sizes. Steph Ducat had a lot of small sizes ...children sizes up to new borns, but also found some very silly tops and socks. We unraveled a series of extraordinary mysteries with the clothes donations like flashy tops, cycling and running gear and alot of tops people went or events they participated in. What tops would the Goodgymers wear?

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!

Mr G was in a chatty mood tonight as he'd received stacks (literary) of old clothes that he was putting off sorting through. They reminded him of past regrets from designer clothes that he'd given away when Mr G felt like he shouldn't have. Sevan asked and it wasn't the value of the clothes nor that he still wanted to wear them that made him regret. Only the memories.

As always, Mr G had great memories of cavalier nights out and events from his youth. Even work involved parties after late night opening on Thursdays and he showed Sevan a few photos from his younger days.

Today, Mr G has changed to more of a cavolo than cavalier lifestyle. Sainsbury's were sold out of his favourite leafy brassica, cavolo nero, this week and Brussels sprouts are now out of season, so instead he'll need to adapt to a cabbage lifestyle for a few days. That sounds like a bit of a downgrade. Sainsbury's were actually sold out of a few Mr G regulars, so some suitable subtitutions were made to keep his fridge stocked up.

Cultivate had a big group of volunteers again this morning at Ealing Hospital, with plenty of corporate volunteers, locals, hospital staff and GoodGymers. Carrying on from last week's session, there were 2 areas to work on:

1. Raking, leveling and sowing the next set of flower beds, close to the staff car park
2. Fixing up the bird deterrents from last week's completed flower beds

Today's GoodGymers split to opposite ends of the site, with Rebekah near the entrance, keen to repair the shiny, fluttery tapes that she and others had attached last week to scare birds away from their newly sown seeds. Chris and Sevan went to prepare the new beds by leveling the soil and removing any large things that shouldn't be there.

The shiny streamers had drooped to the ground since they were placed a week ago. The wind had blown them around and they had slowly slipped down their canes, so instead of flying over the flower beds, birds were doing that instead. Rebekah tied the strands together to make a complicated spider's web that should stay put, working her way along the existing beds.

On the opposite side of the car park, Chris and Sevan were moving soil and searching for big rocks, making Sevan think of Primal Scream for some reason. It was mostly bricks that they unearthed, with Chris declaring that he'd discovered a small meteorite too. The rocks were taken out and by midday, the soil was raked and almost ready for planting by the afternoon seed crew.

Get your rocks out, get your rocks out, honey
Rake it now, now, get'em out downtown

🤷