Last night we were back at Strand on the Green school to help out with a huge wood staining job. There were huts to treat, there were sheds, there were tables and chairs - who wooden want to help out?

Headtorches on, we divided up into a leaf clearing and wood staining teams and got straight to work. With so many hands making light work, it didn't take too long to get all the structures done. So while the sweeping team carried on scooping up every last leaf, the staining teams moved over to the sensory garden to work on the weeds.

Thistles, bind weed and dandelions dispatched, the end of the session was signalled by....was that a donkey? Not a sound we expected to hear in the middle of Chiswick, but given our recent animal sightings nothing surprises us anymore.

We downed tools and went round the corner for our fitness session which last night was speed based. Learning what it feels like to run at different paces between 60 and 100 % effort helps us control our running, maximise efficiency and stamina and helps us understand just how much we have left to give at the end of a run, race or parkrun! We started off at 50% effort and slowly built up, trying to increase our speed by 10% each time. There was some impressively controlled running from the team last night, and some even more impressive turns of speed. Great work everybody!

Next week we're back at Chiswick House - hope to see you then!

Yesterday was National Fitness Day, and at GoodGym Hounslow we celebrated in the best way possible - with a brand new task that took a lot of hard work, a run along the river, and a workout that involved endurance, power, strength and stability challenges!

We started off with a warm up at the Town Hall before heading to Green Dragon school in Brentford. The volunteers there have cleared away a space that hasn't been used for 15 years to create a new growing area for the kids.

We soon arrived and were wowed by how huge the school was and how many cool things they had there - an outside kitchen, play areas and not to mention the gang of four foxes watching us work with interest!

The main job was to tackle the hefty brambles which needed to be taken away by the root. Easier said than done! The brambles were so old that they were seriously deep in the ground - which meant a lot of GG elbow grease.

Meanwhile Ariane was grappling with a very dead but very invasive plant. Armed with secateurs and sheer grit, she took it to task, eventually clearing the area completely.

Amazing work everybody. All that was left to do was a fitness challenge that covered flamingos for stability, half burpees for power, press ups for strength and step ups for endurance. Seeing how many we could complete in one minute was a tough ask, but everybody smashed it.

Next week we're back to Chiswick House - see you there!

With the rose being my long pink gardening gloves. These were an absolute life saver tackling the very overgrown brambles along the side of the front garden. I hacked and bagged solidly for 90 mins and managed to mostly clear it.

Beatriz, Emily Tabitha Pete and Lee worked hard to help pack up all the stock for Traid charity shop in Kilburn

I cycled over to meet Miss J and immediately saw the job at hand upon arrival - the front garden was overrun with weeds and brambles. In fact the side passage and the back garden were too, but the priority was to get clear access to the bins to make it safer for Miss J to take the rubbish out. So I got to work hacking away, getting as much of the roots as I could, which was pretty vigorous work! Thankfully I had some good tools to help me. In an hour and a half I'd cleared the path and filled many bags, but there's plenty more to be done. Miss J was very grateful but would love more help to get the rest done!