The twelfth and final month of 2025 brought a dozen GoodGymers to the Horsenden Farm volunteering day. Were we surprised by such a turnout in December? Not at all! The farm continues to attract crowds of GoodGymers from Ealing and other areas. Today’s visitors were: the regular guest from Hounslow, Maxime, and a former Ealing team member, now based in Tower Hamlets, Maria. It was great to see both of them!

The task was not only an occasion for returns, but also for new beginnings. We welcomed Raji, who already knew Horsenden’s pizza and craft beer secrets, but was keen to get stuck into various volunteering opportunities, and farm work sounded pretty exciting.

Steph Ducat, Iram and Victoria were the lucky (or shall I say mucky?) ones to get the quintessential farm experience, with its animalistic element. They got to play with Nala the dog and with cow poo. Transporting barrows and barrows of manure out of the barn, they clocked in plenty of steps and built an impressive pile of... you know what!

Meanwhile, the less dirty of the dozen played explorers in an overgrown part of Horsenden Hill. Their mission: locate a ditch, clear the ditch, build a dead hedge. Simple, right? With such a big team - yes! On the forefront, several brave ones: Ash, Freya and Raji, led the expedition, and raced each other to get to the ditch. The first timer, Raji, impressed everyone by being the first one to reach the trench. Maxime and Kash widened the paths made by the pioneers, and Afshin vigorously raked the cuttings to gather material for the dead hedge.

The ditch turned out to be longer than expected, so Penny and Sevan launched two more expeditions to attack the ditch from the other side. Both reached the destination and joined forces with those already in the trenches. Result? All unwanted vegetation has been removed from the ditch and used for constructing the dead hedge. Clearing the space will help improve the drainage at one of the trails at Horsenden Hill - when we worked on that path on a very rainy day in the past, it looked like a river!

We finished the session, traditionally, with the wood-fired pizza, and were proud to support Horsenden Loaf, which otherwise didn’t get many customers in the morning. We hoped the sales would pick up in the afternoon, and now hope that the pizza oven will be on in January. Horsenden will be one of the first sessions in 2026, so if we want to include more GoodGymming in your New Year’s resolutions, sign up now!

Flowerbeds, that is. When team GoodGym arrived at the Feeding Ealing site today, task owner Joseph boasted that their growing area had increased by 80% in the past few months by building extra raised beds. There was still more to do and that's where the GoodGymers came in. Joseph's plan was to grow sweet potatoes next year and he explained that they need deep soil, so 4 of the existing growing beds in the polytunnel needed to have a loft extension.

Joseph provided the materials, planks, batons, saws and screwdrivers. All the team needed to do was to decide how to use them to grow the super tubers. Once they had a plan, baby, mummy and daddy mallets were added to the tool roster, long stakes were sawed and they were knocked into the corners of each bed, with hidden water pipes under the soil providing extra jeopardy 🌊.

New sides for the beds were roughly measured and cut to size, then the challenge was to make everything secure so that it would hold together through the next growing season. Screws were applied liberally, with some of the team having their first go at wielding a drill.

"Gently press the trigger and the screw should go into the baton"
"Don't worry. If you screw it up we can undo it" - Sevan
"Nice pun" - Maria
"Actually, that was completely unintentional" - Sevan

With the taller beds ready, Joseph could then fill them with a secret substance that he called his "very fertile soil". The recent - and first - growing season at the site had been successful too and Joseph was keen to share some of the produce prepared through the hard work of volunteers, like the GoodGymers. As the sun was setting, they wrapped up early and Joseph treated them to a glass of 2025 damson wine and jars of Wiri Wiri Chilli Relish and Green Tomato Chutney, which the team helped to harvest for last month. It was a tasty end to the year with Feeding Ealing and GoodGym will be back in early January to prepare the 2026 crop.

Saturday 4pm and mission at one of our regulars Mr R for some trimming of his front garden hedge. On arrival it was starting to be dark : some hedge trimming to be done and weeding as the flower bed was full of weed and the white stoned area had some green items appearing. Easy job but started to get dark : let there be light for me to see the green weed. The wind picked up and the rain was coming down but job done. Mr R said thanks for coming despite the bad weather. The hedge was not harmed and despite the lack of lights it was straight.

The GPRA Hall, which, a month ago, hosted a sustainable Baby & Kids tabletop sale (prepped with GoodGym's involvement), was ready for another makeover on Friday evening. The occasion was the Residents' Christmas Party the following day, and the hall needed a proper dose of sparkles, baubles, lights and balloons.

When Maria and Steph Ducat arrived early, they were immediately put to work at height by one of the organisers, who spotted the potential of the tall and fit duo to do the challenging job of decorating strings hanging from the ceiling. And she was right! By taking turns on climbing and holding the step ladder, Maria and Steph showed no fear and plenty of creative flair, putting up balloons and baubles up high.

Meanwhile, Sevan and Kash arrived at a perfect time to decorate the Christmas tree. The seemingly easy job of putting lights on the tree turned out to be a story with a twist! Two GoodGymers were spinning the tree clockwise to speed up the process until they came across a significant tangle in the wire and nearly relived their mission of disarming Ms H's fairy lights system. Just when they were close to untangling the knot, Sevan noticed that the cable had been torn and no longer connected to the plug! In a fortunate turn of events, one of the GPRA volunteers happened to be an electrician, who, after fetching the right tools for the job, safely fixed the problem.

With the energy supply problem solved, baubles hung on the Christmas tree and balloons on the ceiling, the GPRA Hall turned into a truly festive venue! The next stop of the GoodGym Ealing journey through the festive season is our annual church decoration at St Mary's, this time with the new vicar. Don't miss it and sign up for the 9th December evening task!

Another enjoyable visit to Mr G with amusing chat and a chance to look through some of his amazing artwork.

The supermarket was gearing up for the festive season, with Christmas classics blaring over the speakers. As a former expert window display designer, I don’t think Mr G would have been too impressed by the slightly haphazard piles of seasonal supplies though.

A new item on the shopping list this week: tinned tuna! And in the absence of one of his usual ready meals, I used my in-depth knowledge of his off-list preferences to provide a chicken korma as a substitute.

A trio of GoodGym folk were on hand to help out at the Ealing Mile, a monthly race organised by the good people at We Run Ealing/Ealing Half Marathon. They registered runners, marshaled and cheered!

The conditions were ideal - blue sky, a bit chilly - as the 23 runners of all ages circumnavigated Lammas Park.

The runners have a break in January to over indulge! See you again in 2026.