Sunny Saturday and the sunglasses are out on the runs. Arrived at Mrs I who was ready to crack on with the decluttering. This week found similar items but also found the smallest pram I have ever seen. You can open it and store items in it like it was the case here with some pink bracelet with beeds for a small person. Also found a small purse in the shape of a sock. We cleared the table today and separated items in smaller bags which will be taken away soon. The conservatory has more space and you can walk freely in it now, but still some work to be done.

On another HANGOT day, the sun came out to play. That was good news for the team as they would find out later. With most of the group present, the HANGOT and GoodGym volunteers took a long walk along the Grand Union Canal to Osterley Lock Orchard, where the fruit trees needed a good mulch and dead plants needed to be cleared.

The team put their 4 wheelbarrows to work, with Ashley, Steph and Kash joining HANGOT volunteer Mas in filling wood chip into wheelbarrows and shuttling it to the orchard at Osterley Lock, where Iram, Sophie and Sevan were ready to remove weeds, spread the wood chip and chop back any dead plants.

"I have a small challenge if you'd like it."
"Can GoodGym take mulch to the terrace?"
"It's at the top of the hill, so we don't often go there." - Hillary

That did sound like a challenge. None of the GoodGymers had been to the terrace before though, so no one knew where the hill was how how difficult it would be to get to the top. At that moment, Shubham and Purva arrived for their first GoodGym task, joining the others to power wheelbarrows up the muddy path to the sun-drenched orchard up the hill. Welcome to you both! 👋

With mulching of the terrace trees complete, everyone gathered to celebrate 🎊 Iram's 50th good deed 🎊. The only snag was that Iram's epic battle with burdock had left her covered in burrs and she needed some emergency hairdressing, expertly performed by Ash. Iram achieved the "black belt" sash under a year since she started attending tasks, then writing creative reports, leading tasks and finally promoting GoodGym through the videos that she creates and shares online. That's some journey. The coveted black GoodGym t-shirt will be heading Iram's way soon. Congrats Iram! 🥳

Everyone returned to the main orchard for some speed mulching and chopping in the last few minutes of the session. Then, it was time for the group photo and a walk through Elthorne Park to a local coffee shop for social and some refreshments.

We'll be back helping HANGOT in April for our regular monthly session. Sign up here.

Four grown up GoodGymers and one MiniGymer met at St Margarets Open Space to pick the litter as a part of LAGER Can's Great British Spring Clean, a bold initiative aiming to pick all 146 parks in the Ealing Borough over the second half of March. 45 minutes was more than enough to tidy up the pledged space, so the team cleared the path (and its surroundings) leading to the Fox pub as well. Well done everyone, big or little rubbish fighters!