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!