The Autumn season of GoodGymming is certainly open! On an October Sunday morning, it brought us rain, mud and a kaleidoscopic display of leaves in Pear Tree Park. Three GoodGymers: Sevan, Steph Ducat and Kash met Greenwayers: Richard, Sue and Phillip to plunge into the depths of the park's overgrowth. The group had the pleasure of entering Pear Tree Park using the new path they had created in August.

At the safety briefing, Richard treated us to a new three-letter acronym, rather than recycling EYE he had taught us in June. The new acronym spelled AHA:

A-bove - watch out for overhanging branches
H-ernia - don't lift ridiculously heavy things
A-ss over tits - you'll end up in this configuration if you won't look for trip hazards

Today's objective was to create another path - alongside River Brent. Apart from the usual brambles and nettles to chop down, the obstacles included trees. For those specimens, we needed a larger calibre - what about a saw? Richard and Sevan wielded those comfortably, while Steph and Kash found their happy place in hacking the stingy and prickly plants with slashers. Sue did a bit of litter picking and lopping at the start, then uncovered her calling: hauling the cut-down tree branches (or shall I say: logs!) to the side of the path. Phillip, the new Greenwayers recruit, made the pathway spotless by collecting all the litter found under the summer growth.

Two hours of sawing, lopping, slashing and rolling the chunkiest logs aside made a stunning difference. The 70 metres (according to Richard and Phillip's estimations) of the overgrown track has been restored to a stage where it resembles a path again.

Richard and Ben from Clean Up River Brent have grand plans to restore the riverside trail to its former glory and ordered woodchip to spread on the path. We will be back to Pear Tree Park again next month to woodchip the new path with the Greenwayers.

When the funnel of the Pitshanger junior parkrun wrapped up, the Four GoodGymeers already had another mission on the horizon: making a different kind of funnel: a funnel in a jungle to provide the members of CURB access to a colony of invasive Himalayan balsam!

Having rewarded themselves for the early Sunday start with a coffee in the park, Harvey, Kash, Sevan and Steph walked 2 km to their next task. They met Richard of Ealing Greenwayers at Brentside School gates to march towards the south bank of River Brent, where Richard gave them a safety briefing, listing the hazards at the task.

The general rule is EYE: Examine - Yell - Exterminate.

The GoodGymers were ready to face the plant-based dangers of the riverbank, equipped with thick gloves and weapons from Richard. For a few volunteers, it was the first opportunity to use a new tool: slashers! Various GoodGymers had different interpretations of that device. For Steph, who kept finding golf balls projected months ago from the other side of the river, it was a golf club. For Kash, it was a fearsome machete to penetrate through the jungle as she enthusiastically put herself in the vanguard of the group. The nettles or brambles stems she left behind, were razed with deadly precision by Harvey and Steph with shears. Sevan's job was on a higher level: cutting the overhanging branches of crack willow and other trees. He managed to take down an impressive oak branch using just loppers! As everyone was so absorbed with hacking and slashing, Richard decided to do a quick litterpick on the path the GoodGymers created for the CURB balsam bashers team.

In an hour, the team of human brush cutters created not a funnel but a highway to their Eldorado: the Himalayan balsam! Ben's team from CURB will deal with those plants in no time before they flower and spread their seeds. For the GoodGymers and Richard, the day was not over - one more job awaited at the other side of the river.

Join us for another session like this one in July - sign up here. The tasks are short, rewarding and in a friendly atmosphere - and running is not a requirement!

After their debut as funnel managers at Pitshanger junior parkrun, Sevan and Kash, rather than running back home, hung out at the cafe in Pitshanger Park, as they had other fish to fry in the park. But the fish had to be first fished out from the River Brent!

The GoodGymers met in front of the Pitshanger Bowls Pavilion with Ben - the founder of Clean Up River Brent, Cathy - the leader of LAGER Can, Ranger Jamie and volunteers eager to have a dip in Brent and collect some souvenirs from the Sunday out in the river: the rubbish!

They also met Richard, a volunteer gardener from Walpole Park, who recognised the GoodGymers as the helpers doing the jobs his small group of volunteers wouldn't be able to cover: filling the raised bed and planting and mulching ahead of filming the Antiques Roadshow. Richard was extremely grateful for all the GoodGymers who made impossible jobs possible and reminded Sevan and Kash that the BBC filming takes place today!

Back to Pitshanger Park! After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to get into the river in Pitshanger this year, all volunteers jumped into waders. Ben gave everyone the usual health & safety briefing, mentioning the treacherous depths, current, bacteria and...

"And remember to watch out for that hogweed!" - a passerby.
"Exactly! It is coming..." - Ben.

After viewing some pictures of giant hogweed, the squad of rubbery mermaids and tritons armed with wading poles marched through the park and found a place to descend into the water. This time, it was Jamie's turn to talk about safety rules after entering the river.

"Cathy, how deep are we allowed to go? Was it waist level?"
"Mid-thigh level. Some of us have holes in their bums!"

In case you wondered what kind of people don't have that anatomical feature, you need to know that Cathy's waders had a puncture, well, below the waist level.

The volunteers got into the water in pairs. The GoodGym explorers decided to go in the opposite direction than the mainstream litter pickers and discovered land on the other bank of the river with jungles of hogweed, and litter islands made primarily of carrier bags tangled around tree roots.

Sevan was a bit underwhelmed by the size of the objects he was finding in the water, hoping for a bigger catch, but agreed with Kash that maybe it was a sign that CURB's efforts to keep the river clean were paying off. Later, they found out that the other volunteers excavated a mattress buried in the riverbed.

The GoodGymers could stay only 90 minutes on the task but collected three bags of aquatic litter before running off to prepare for their next gig, with a stop in Walpole Park to check out whether Antiques Roadshow was really there as Richard said.

---

Appendix A - Creative process behind report writing

Kash: "I need a pun. And I want something related to that bum quote. And water. Like 'watering bum-hole'. Or, you know there is a phrase: 'water below the bridge'..."
Sevan: "Water under the bridge?"
Kash: "Yeah, that one! 'Water under the bum'!"
Sevan: "There was an MTV show in the nineties called 'Beavis and Butt-Head'. They had this phrase: 'Cornholio'! Maybe 'Bumholio!'? But I don't think it will be accepted."
Kash: "Yes, I think bums are only accepted in the body. Hahaha! Report body, I mean! My quote is almost as good as Cathy's original!"
Sevan: "Maybe we should record this whole conversation in the appendix?"

A bunch of CURB members, LAGER Canners and, of course, GoodGymers gathered on a windy Sunday morning in front of Pitshanger Bowls Pavilion. Everyone was in high spirits as it looked like we would get into the waters of River Brent for a spring clean-up. Ben, the event organiser, gave us a safety briefing, listing not easily visible dangers like:

⚠️ treacherous depth and current of the river
⚠️ hidden giant hogweed growing at the banks
⚠️ bacteria lurking in the water

Undeterred by the perils of Brent River, we were all ready with wading poles, pickers and hoops with waste bags in our hands and slightly loosely fitting waders on our bottoms. We ventured up the river to find a safe point to get into the water and poked the riverbed with our poles. Close to the bank, the river looked shallow, but a few inches further, we encountered high water levels and a strong current. We got in for a very brief time and collected the plastic pieces wrapped around the most easily accessible tree branches. Ben looked worried.

"I am really sorry, guys. I'm afraid we need to call off the wading. There is too much flow, and it is not safe. They must have opened the sluices at Welsh Harp.

"Did you say the water came from Wales?"

In case you wondered, the Welsh Harp is another name for the Brent Reservoir. The reservoir was named after a pub that stood by its bank. While the tavern has been demolished, its liquid namesake still exists and often causes disruption of the CURB events. Ben usually gets notified about releasing the water from the reservoir, but this time, the Clean-Up River Brent was caught by surprise!

Ben and Cathy from LAGER Can wasted no time and suggested alternative jobs around the river: bashing Himalayan balsam, digging out giant hogweed and litter picking at the floodplain near the allotments in Pitshanger. Waders off, we headed to the place where rubbish accumulated after the latest flooding. We found lots of small plasticky stuff, so old and washed, we couldn't tell anymore what it used to be originally. With a few pieces of underwear, single shoes, and plastic Kinder Surprise eggs added to the collection, we tied the waste bags and dropped them into one big pile for the Council pickup, then split to do more missions in the afternoon.

The recent heavy rains made the waters of River Brent high enough to put in question wading litter-pick in the river in Pitshanger Park, organised by the leader of Clean Up River Brent (CURB), Ben. The original event, planned for Sunday, did not happen. Did it curb Ben's appetite for a river clean-up? Certainly not! He decided to change the location to the river banks by Perivale Park Golf Course - a place which soon might be closed to create a new regional park.

Today's task had a model setup when it comes to GoodGym modes of transport:

• Runner: Sevan 🏃🏽‍♂️
• Walker: Kash 🚶‍♀️
• Cyclist: Luis 🚴

All three arrived at the golf course car park to do a different kind of sport, not quite golfing! Instead of golf clubs 🏌️, Cathy from LAGER Can handed them litter pickers. In place of the holes 🕳️, there were hoops for the bin bags. And rather than golf balls ⛳, the GoodGymers were supposed to put litter - into the bin bags.

The teams from CURB, LAGER Can, Green 'S' Welfare Force Wing and GoodGym spread between two river banks. The GoodGymers chose the road-side of the river, far away from the danger of flying golf balls on the golf-course-side. That strategic move also meant that dropping the full bags along the road was much more convenient than taking them out of the golf course!

What we found:

• Cans, bottles, snack wrapping 🍬
• Flytipped garden waste 🪵
• Golf balls! ⛳
• A Lime bike battery 🚲
• A surprise 💩 (one of us stepped into it and cleaned shoes with magic tree bark!)
• A syringe 💉😱
• A huge multi-game board 🏁
• Giant hogweed in its infancy 🌱 - a dangerous plant Ben warned us about (he is assembling a team to dig out the hogweed in the upcoming week!)

What we didn't find (out):

• Whether Luis is taller than Ben!

This should have been a group run 🏃‍♂️

When Madhan powerwalked from West Ealing, pondering whether he will make it in time to Perivale by foot, he caught sight of Kash who was running in the same direction. They decided to run together and arrived 5 minutes ahead of time at Perivale Park Golf Course car park where they met the members of CURB and LAGER Can: Ben M(orris), Ben T(ea lover), Rachel, Doug, Cathy and Mark. They were about to embark on a campaign against Himalayan balsam.

Himalayan balsam facts 💡

• it is an invasive weed, native to the Himalayas
• it came to the UK as a garden plant but quickly became a nuisance
• it grows rapidly and spreads quickly
• it smothers other vegetation
• it grows on river banks where its seeds can be easily transported downstream by water

Did you guys hear about ASMR? - Ben M

• it makes a satisfying, crunching sound when snapped or stepped on.

This definitely should have been a group run 🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️

Ben M told us that the location of the balsam bash would be on the other side of the golf course. He offered us seats in one of the cars of CURB members to get there. We decided GoodGym would run instead, so Ben gave us what3words directions:

plug.thick.unwanted

Not terrified by the ominous-sounding location nor the bombardment of golf balls, we charged across the golf course like mad people.

After zig-zagging to get around a stream, we hit the riverbank. No one was there. We ran upstream and then downstream, but we couldn't see the others. We crossed a footbridge to get to the South riverbank, but our fellow balsam bashers weren't there. After calling Cathy, we found out that the rest of the team was still on its way. Finally, we saw Rachel and Ben T and helped them bring the equipment to the place called...

plug.thick.unwanted

Crunch time 🤜

Ben M kindly lent Madhan and Kash wellies, so they could enter the jungle without ruining their trainers. He gave everyone a safety briefing, trying to not put us off by mentioning dangers like:

• giant hogweed ☣️
• polluted water, containing E-coli and sewage 🤢
• strong current and deep water ☠️

We entered the thicket and found ourselves surrounded by muddy patches covered in dead balsam, defeated by the previous expeditions and tall stalks of still alive enemy plants.

After being stung many times by oversized nettles, we found fields covered almost entirely with balsam. For more than 2.5 hours we indulged in mindless pulling the weeds with shallow roots and celery-like stalks, savouring the crunching sounds they made.

It's like eating crisps in a library - Madhan

Muscle work 💪🏽

We cleared a vast area of the riverbank off the Himalayan balsam plague but it looked like we'd need to come back another time to pull the remaining plants. Before heading off, Ben M took a group photo.

Ok, class dismissed! - Cathy

Cathy, who values a good litter pick over the joys of balsam bashing, collected five bags of rubbish that had to be transported to the nearest area accessible to Greener Ealing. Madhan, Kash and Mark took that job and, after some serious upper body workout, they dropped the waste on the other side of the river by the road.

Madhan and Kash then set off to conquer supermarkets, chai shops and gardens of Greenford.