Sunday afternoon and I was back at Mr R to carry on with the back garden as most of it has been cleared on the previous sessions. Mr Fox was once again in the garden when I arrived and disappeared when I came out. This time I was here to tackle the bramble roots especially near the fence facing the neighbor as growing into his garden. I cleared loads and then some birds started to appear for lunch as I was moving soil around. There was 1 robin, then 2 and then 3 of them but then a magpie joined the "worm" feast. The bin was full once again and got more to be put away.

After a morning of cheering almost a record-breaking number of young runners at Acton junior parkrun, four GoodGymers went for a 6 km walk to another task in Ealing. Maria stepped in at the last-minute to join the session with Care4Calais after finding out that a slot had unexpectedly freed up. Well done, Maria!

Sevan, Steph Ducat, Kash and Maria met with task owner Tamzin, who had three types of jobs for them.

Pushchair washing

A wave of donated baby 4-wheels just hit Care4Calais - some particularly grubby - which meant that Kash’s services were in demand. As the usual pram cleaner, Kash swapped her socks for crocs, grabbed a brush and a hose, and spent a decent chunk of the session enjoying herself outdoors, giving used pushchairs a good jet wash. She even found a 10-pence coin - a tip for her efforts - in one of the vehicles.

Men’s clothes sorting

Who would better handle categorising and organising mixed-up men’s stock than a double-act of GoodGym guys? Sevan and Steph powered through all sizes of masculine outfits, including a quite niche 6XL pair of trousers. They found a range of formal apparel: suits, shirts and waistcoats, unfortunately, inappropriate for the asylum seekers living in hotels. The session had a record number of unsuitable donations: from heavily worn underwear to non-clothing items such as a deodorant or hunk soap, which were deemed to end up in a bin or a charity shop.

Making packs

Maria lent Tamzin a hand with making parcels for adults and children, including shoe packs and bags with school uniforms. Tamzin had special goodie bags for kids containing water bottles, notebooks, hair clips and bands for little girls. Maria even packed some really cute carrier bags made of material that felt like a teddy bear!

The last 20 minutes of the task everyone spent packing up excess sorted men's clothes into temporary boxes and bags, then stomping on cardboard shoe boxes to fit them in a recycling bin. Four GoodGymers got so much done in just two hours! Tamzin received a full 8-hour volunteer workday of help to support refugees in a single GoodGym session - how impactful is that!

There were a lot of children at Acton Junior parkrun this morning. It was a surprise to most people, including the Run Director, who hadn't planned for it. Only one of the regulars told Sevan:

"I forgot when the school were coming" 🤫

Yep, a school had encouraged their students to come along today and it had doubled the usual number of runners. Acton Juniors had gained 60 extra participants. Most GoodGymers reported that it was either "busy" or "chaos" with Maria reporting lots of corner cutters, Steph's high fiving hands were working overtime and in the funnel, children and parents were backing up as Sevan tried to scan all of their barcodes. Chaos reigned until reinforcements were put in place.

Kash was tail walking on her 100th parkrun volunteer and to her, everything was pretty normal. The extra numbers didn't make any difference to what was happening at the back of the field.

It took longer than usual to wrap everything up. Most of the new children looked to have a good experience and with any luck will become regulars in the coming weeks and months.

Early Sunday morning and the 3 usual suspects met in front of Ealing Broadway Station to then disappear in the streets of Ealing towards Acton Park where they were going to volunteer later. 2O minutes later and they were ready to marshal. tail walk and scan the young runners at junior parkrun. Nice and easy run with some chatting and catching up.

Been a while since I went shopping for Ms F. So here I am on a late Saturday afternoon to sort her shopping out especially bottled water as only had 1 left. Usual list with a few changes based on store coupons. Also heard that works will be done in the store which means some extra discounts as the fresh counters are soon to close for refurbishment. So the chase for extra and cheaper race went on which Ms F already started during the week with some bits. As a Saturday late afternoon the shelves were nearly empty but got 95% of the list. No extra cheese as most had gone due to the reduced prices before they go for a counter refurbishment. Ms F was happy for all her groceries and was also happy to see me so she could speak in French. End of mission ended up with how her new TV box works as the engineer of the day did not explain a lot so I took 5 to 10 minutes to show her. Until next time, but who knows which store as her local Waitrose is getting a makeover.

As I was going to Guide Run at Hackney moves in the afternoon with one of our Achilles UK Visually Impaired runners, I decided to do a mission in Goodgym Hackney. My 21st GG area and today was special as my mission was with Ms L who is also visually impaired and cannot see much. I arrived and she had a French friend to help her out as loads to do in the flat. Ms L needed us to sort items, clean or dust them before putting in containers or boxes ready for when she moves. I was asked if I was ok with sorting the bathroom, which I didn't mind. The lights were pink so not easy to read the labels of the bottles I found. I sorted shampoo, shower gels, soaps, etc.. I had some visitors or were they checking on me? Three beautiful fluffy cats!!!They just wanted some attention. Once finished, I was shown a 2nd bathroom upstairs and emptied a small cupboard full of hair items like shampoo, dye, brushes etc ... Whisker me this : another mission done until next time.

Thursday evening is Achilles UK evenings. Guides and VI runners meet then run together with different goals for the day, but also to socialise and have a good chat. Despite the typical British weather loads turned up for another great session in Hyde Park. Goodgymers present as usual.

Last night’s GoodGym Hounslow mission began after a day where thunder had rattled windows, lightning cracked across the sky, and hailstones had come down hard. Surely (we hoped) the weather had got it all out of its system by now?

It had not.

Spirits were high as we arrived at the task and got stuck into an eclectic evening of gardening, tidying and creative endeavours. We split into teams and spread out across the site.

Maxime, Tish, Michelle and Steph tackled the weeding operation, bravely taking on stubborn weeds and overgrown patches that had clearly enjoyed the recent rain a little too much.

Meanwhile, Chris, Emily and Alanna were busy clearing away piles of wet leaves — filling sack after sack with slippery mulch.

There was the evening’s most artistic assignment - Fran and Lucy took charge of transforming an old tyre destined for a new life as a raised flower bed. The mission was to entirely wrap it in rope to create something both practical and beautiful. It was certainly a first for GG Hounslow, but then we're always up for something new.

All systems were go… until the heavens reopened.

Rain came down suddenly and relentlessly, soaking tools, gloves and enthusiasm. But in true GoodGym style, we carried on as long as we could, squeezing every possible minute out of the session before the weather finally won.

The good news is that there’s definitely more to come. That tyre still needs to be completely wrapped, and now the big design question remains: do we continue with the same colour rope, switch it up with something different, or fully commit to a rainbow masterpiece?

As we packed up and headed home beneath a colourful sky, it felt very much as though the weather itself was offering a pretty strong hint…