Its been a while since I was at Ms Y flat. The last time was when I cleared the kitchen so that she could get the builder in for quotes and get the work done. Now the kitchen has been revamped and looks much better. New flooring, new cupboards, washing machine and fridge in place. The doors are straight and not hanging off. My task today was to unbox all the kitchen items I boxed on my last session before the works started. Less storage space as the fridge took over the space of the storage area, but now Ms Y can open all the cupboards as not in the way anymore. We did some declutter and ended up with 4 empty boxes and a big black bag of old unwanted items and rubbish of course. Ms Y likes to keep things and for some of them alot : check the amount of sponges she has. This cleared the lounge table : still boxes of books and paperwork which Ms Y has to find time to sort out. She will need to shred the paperwork that is not needed anymore. Books all over but Ms Y decided now to not keep all of them but still needs to decide which ones to keep. I also gathered all the tools in one area to free some space and filled a box of light bulbs and electrical items - Ms Y has enough bulbs to keep the Castle of Versailles bright - you light me up!!! Baby steps but getting there and more space for Ms Y

HANGOT and GoodGym were at the most easterly orchard today that HANGOT maintain at Osterley Lock, where they did a brilliant job.

"Once you clear around the fruit trees, it looks like an orchard again. Not only trees in a field." - Mirjam, task owner

Clearing around the fruit trees was top of the priority list for the GoodGymers, removing weeds and brambles, plus some pesky burdock. They were also keeping an eye out for any stones or branches that would damage blades as HANGOT's trained scythe operators would follow, slicing everything to the ground.

Steph, Kash and Sevan got clearing with shears and loppers around pear, apple and quince trees. They even learned how to tell if a quince was ripe. It's when it loses it's fuzz and pulls easily off the branch. All the orchard's quinces were still fuzzy, so still a few more weeks to wait.

Soon, they came across what looked like a fruit tree, but they didn't recognise what the strange looking fruit was. Mirjam came along to explain that it was medlar, which has a few names in French including "cul-de-chien" or "dog's bum hole". The resemblance was... well, a resemblance and the preparation of the fruit was as strange as it's appearance. HANGOT love the trees as they don't need much care, but the GoodGymers decided to stick to the more common fruits that could be eaten straight off the branch and didn't resemble body parts.

Steph moved on to raking and wheelbarrowing duty to finish off the session in another part of the orchard, collecting the scythed cuttings. He took immense pride in making a giant bramble burrito that he rolled to the compost pile.

We'll be back helping HANGOT next month in another orchard along the Grand Union Canal. More details to follow.

After running a half-marathon and earning yet another medal from the Big Half, Steph caught up with running friends and beat the tube strike to make it to Blondin Park. He was about to meet Sevan and Kash at the GoodGym stall at Brentford Festival and inspire more locals to do good while getting fit.

The last shift of our volunteer-fishing campaign at the festival saw an increase in children’s interest in our game with prizes, which we’ve been turning into an opportunity to talk to parents about flexible volunteering.

The closer to 6 pm, the more gazebos were seen taken down - including a six-legged one we had erected with five GoodGymers, which was kindly dismantled by eight police officers. We lent a hand in taking down a neighbouring gazebo that we had also put up in the morning. The community group we had helped saved us by lending us scissors, without which we wouldn’t have been able to strip down our own stall.

Grateful for the opportunity to showcase GoodGym at the festival, we stayed a bit longer to dismantle the Brentford Festival flags, that sadly won’t be used next year. It was time to say goodbye to a great community event that had been around for 20 years. While we will miss helping out at the festival prep, we are hoping to team up with the fantastic event manager, Linda, again, to support the Blondin Park Consortium in improving the lovely green space between Northflieds and Brentford.

London's community half marathon went red this year! 🔥

A huge congratulations to the oodles of GoodGym folk who caught well-earned happy mornings under a hot-hot-hot late summer sun ☺️

It was the biggest joy seeing you all!

Please send me your photos (!) and I will pop them up here (alexmurtough@goodgym.org) ❤️