The thermometers were showing -5 degrees on Saturday morning and Grove Farm looked stunning under a thin layer of frost, glittering in the sunlight. The frosty cover hid not only the beauty of nature, but also mysteries.

The Friends of Grove Farm: Mike, Anna, Olena and other volunteers, together with Cathy from LAGER Can, were about to perform their investigations as a flytip was found at the end of the lane leading to David Lloyd sports centre. To be extra thorough, five GoodGymers joined the survey of the entire lane: Christos, Diana, Sevan, Steph Ducat and Kash.

At the flytip site, the detectives discovered plenty of metal pieces: nuts, bolts, washers, elements for connecting scaffolding parts and stuff they were not sure what was for. The metal was collected into two strong fabric bags and loaded onto a trolley. The team spied some incriminating correspondence, giving away the identity and address of the suspected flytipper. They may get justice even if they haven't been caught red-handed!

Speaking of hands and temperature, probably the biggest challenge for the volunteers today was operating the litterpickers with half-frozen fingers. Some precautious GoodGymers fought the cold with double gloves. But the cold must have held some benefits!

"It's to keep us young." - Diana

Why spend a fortune on cryogenic therapy to reverse aging when you have winter sessions at Grove Farm? If you missed the first one this year - not all is lost! Meet us for the conservation day in two weeks and help remove invasive plants from the woodland - sign up here.

On the first day of 2025, Steph Ducat and Kash met in front of the GoodGymers' favourite coffee shop in Hanwell. The place was closed, but the runners were not coming for a coffee! The two braved the weather (which had already caused the cancellation of several morning events, including Steph's race) to start the year with a clean slate - literally, by cleaning up the local area. The storm outside was not as bad as in the morning. It was worse! The wind had calmed down slightly but brought quite miserable rainfall. Would that scare off the GoodGymers? Never!

Steph and Kash ran 2km to the border between Hanwell and Southall and stopped at Greenford Road, which they knew from their December litter pick tends to accumulate a lot of rubbish! This time the duo headed East for their litter hunt, using the walkway leading to the Ealing Hanwellians Cricket Club. On the path, they met Mohamed - another pair of eager hands to help with the clean-up!

The trio discovered plenty of empty small vodka bottles and half-empty beer cans - evidence that the path between golf courses was to some people a true drinking trail! Other findings included a masala-flavoured mouth freshener and a number of pens and pencils - very suitable assets to write the GoodGym history: the first chapter of 2025!

Despite the gloomy aura, Mohamed, Steph and Kash found satisfaction in the task, having collected 3 bags of litter. To get the blood flowing in the soaked arms and legs, all three set off for a journey to the Care4Calais donation sorting task. With 5km to cover in 30 minutes, the three opted for a well-paced run. Despite the uphills and very slippery mud on the paths, the GoodGymers made it to the task ahead of time, phew! It was a fun and rewarding start to the year and all three felt it was a much better alternative than sitting at home, avoiding the rain!

Litter Saint Nick and his Litter Helper visited the junction between Windmill Lane and Greenford Road to bring presents to the kids of Greenford. They were shocked that instead of well-behaved youngsters, they discovered traces of naughty adults along the road and in the planters behind a bus stop. The evidence of the misbehaviour in the area was linked to the local off-license shops, takeaways... and pharmacies?

The two summoned their magical blue bags, litter-pickers and hoops and rolled up their sleeves to make an example of how the neighbourhood for well-behaved children should look like. Litter Saint Nick and his helper collected four bags of rubbish and a wealth of knowledge about which liquids the local mischiefs like the most.

Have you been naughty this year, leaving your litter on the street? Watch yourself! You don't want to find a bag of your rubbish from Santa in your stocking, do you?

After meeting the Friends of Grove Farm and LAGER Can members at the usual meeting spot, Anna was on hand to provide litter pickers and some bags for the rubbish and litter collection. The group divided into two teams to work along the different paths through Grove Farm, picking up the leftover rubbish. Working along the main road, it was definitely clear that someone had a Bounty craving, with many wrappers found along the same area!

Working our way into the fields of Grove Farm to clear more rubbish dropped in the sides of paths, the team all ended up at the front entrance of the site, to help clearing the fly tipped rubbish.

After bagging up the large items and collecting additional litter around the area and at the sides of the main road, the team wrapped up for the photo… And with a total of 32 bags collected, another great achievement by the team!

The first Grove Farm litterpick of 2024 brought a surprisingly large group of volunteers, despite only one degree above zero in the morning. Anna from Friends of Grove Farm was a solo leader of the session, not sharing the responsibilities with Mike who couldn't make it. She proved she had everything under control and seemed to be everywhere at once!

Miriam was the first to show up at the task, while Runners Sevan and Kash covered an 8 km uphill run. Lizzy came a long way for her first-ever litter-picking session, already sporting her bright red GoodGym top! She made a wise decision and grabbed a hot drink from David Lloyd. The rest of the GoodGymers were freezing their fingers despite wearing double gloves, brrr! ❄️

The clean-up covered mainly the lane between Sudbury Hill station and David Lloyd car park. We occasionally ventured into the bushes to pick up hidden bottles and cans. We had a good reason to do our best to dig them out of there - Anna brought bags for recycling she had from LAGER Can. The nasty brambles were trying to stop us at every step. We are planning a revenge in two weeks. Come and join us!

Sunny morning, quiet streets.
Is it time for litter picks?
3k run for Sev and Kash,
6k for Steph to find some trash.
Acton Gardens needs a hand,
So we joined the residents' band.
Aga and the volunteers
Could have burst into tears,
Seeing a fly-tipping deed,
But she chose to take the lead,
Show GoodGymers all that mess,
They will sort it with no stress!
Collab time with LAGER Can?
With a team much more gets done!
Smiling faces, lots of fun,
Exercise for everyone!
If you had quite shortish legs,
You could have done 3k steps*!
After an hour with the litter,
Coffee made our morning sweeter.

---

* Disclaimer: You could do 3k steps if you were Kash 😉 Steph and Sevan with their long legs did 2.5k steps - but every GoodGymer did 2 km of walking on the litter pick alone. What a great, active start to the day!