Saturday evening and it is getting darker and colder so hot food and drinks were much appreciated by the customers on The Strand.

3 regular Goodgymers turned up to serve vegetable biryani, apples, bananas, some chocolate sweets and hot drinks. The apples were so shiny! Anna and Steph Ducat were on rice serving duties and Aman on hot drinks. Another great session on the Strand.

Chilly but sunny Saturday and I cycled 9km to Mr T for our weekly chat. I was greeted by Mr Skeleton in the lounge 😂😂. Mr T is still waiting for his other Halloween items and hopefully they will arrive next week as he can't wait to decorate his flat.

We had our usual 60 minute chat before I cycled again in the streets of Ealing.

Four Ealing GoodGymers, having stopped for a coffee after a morning session at one of the HANGOT community orchards, walked to Blondin Park to tackle... another orchard! Two guests from other West London areas joined the task. Maxime made the trip to Ealing from GoodGym Hounslow, while JP cycled all the way from Richmond.

The team continued working in the park's orchard, using pickaxes, spades and rakes to remove a circle of grass around the fruit trees, making space for a layer of woodchip to be spread at our future Tuesday night session.

Saturday afternoon turned out to be a great time for wildlife spotting at Blondin Park! We uncovered an underground wasp nest between tree roots — and quickly retreated! At the base of another fruit tree, we discovered something even more exciting: a slow worm, also known as a deaf adder! Despite its name, it was neither a worm nor a snake, but a pretty harmless legless lizard — way more amicable than those feisty wasps!

While focusing on grass removal around the trees, we also dealt with a few tree suckers and blackthorn shoots — removing only those that were in the way of the fruit trees and leaving any sloes untouched. We haven't saved the sloes for gin, but left them for the animals looking for food over the winter.

The Blondin Park session traditionally finished with a round of delicious hot chocolate in the pavilion, kindly provided on the house by our fantastic task owner, Linda! We're looking forward to more hot chocolate as the evenings get colder — and, of course, to mulching the fruit trees we've been preparing! Sign up now to join Steph on that adventure!

October's session with HANGOT took the team back to Osterley Lock, like last month. Unlike last month, the aim was to get the whole orchard, not only the front, to look tidy and business-like.

While the HANGOT volunteers scythed the open areas with tall grasses and burdock, the GoodGymers grabbed loppers and shears to clear big patches of brambles. For the first half of the session everyone was chopping away, making piles of spiky cuttings all over the orchard. Later on, Steph, Lena and Kash stuck to their destroying ways, while Scott and Sevan raked and pitchforked their way around the orchard, moving everyone's cuttings onto an ever growing compost heap.

By the end of the session, the dead or invasive plants had been cleared and for the foreseeable future, the orchard at Osterley Lock won't need more maintenance. Well, at least until spring arrives and the whole cycle starts again. 🌸☀️🍂❄️

Chilly Saturday and its Parkrun. as I arrived early, I helped clear the straight line of the conkers with Neil another regular volunteer. Who would think I would use a shovel at Parkrun. Then shovelled the conkers off the finish straight. Then I was posted as Marshal position 2 : double act like Jags said that I mastered the film double act as holding 2 spots on the course.