It's been a while since Ealing GoodGymers had a chance to fight with weeds. Yes, we did a good amount of bramble bashing during the winter months yet we haven't been battling with the likes of dandelions and other leafy invaders recently. The spring weather, along with lots of greenery and blossoms, brought back the weeds! Today's group run to Acton Town gave us a perfect opportunity to get a reintroduction to the weeding craft.

We ran to help maintain six planters where Cultivate London provided soil and planted flowers. Seven GoodGymers showed up at the task which was a nice surprise as in the morning we still had less than half of that number signed up. Having extra people meant that a couple of us, Madhan and Chris, took care of litter picking at the site, while Milly, Sevan, Claire, Lionel and Kash, together with the task owner, Romina, dived into the planters.

Pulling the weeds wasn't too hard as their roots didn't go deep into the soil (Claire explained that this is usually the case with annual weeds versus perennial weeds that tend to have roots that run deeper). Lionel was still not convinced about the feasibility of pulling the weeds with our hands and went to the local shop to make an investment. He returned with a couple of bamboo toothbrushes that served us as tools in the absence of forks and trowels. They worked quite well, so kudos to Lionel for his creativity!

Having finished the job, we headed back to Cultivate's plant nursery. Unfortunately, we missed the chance to revisit the wildflower trail as we got less than 10 minutes on the task remaining. As a nice closure, we unpacked a little surprise from our new sponsor Raleigh - everyone received a little gift and with a smile on their face walked, run or cycled back home.

The orchard is a really nice space, away from the hustle and bustle of Ealing Broadway. It's well used by young people and the community. Tonight we put our backs into transporting wood chip from outside the orchard, via shovels and wheelbarrows, into the space to help dry up the muddy patches.

This was a special space for a special occasion - the celebration of Jenni's 500th good deed - yes, that's right, 500 good deeds! Jen is truly the Queen of GoodGym Ealing. And she was straight on the case ordering her crown-encrusted 500 GoodGym t-shirt.

But this was also a celebration tinged with some sadness. Jenni is moving out of the area. We can't tell you how much we'll miss her - she's one of our own. Timing her 500th good deed with her her leaving party was a logistical masterpiece for which we can only congratulate Jenni once again! She promised to visit soon and we'll hold her to that.

8 GoodGymers met in South Acton to transform flower beds as part of the Acton Flower Show. Alex arrived first at Culivate's site to unlock the door to the treasure trove of plants and equipment that would be used to transform the beds. Others arrived soon after with Emily and Cam walking, Kash, Harvey and Sevan running from Bodyline, then Lionel and Divya arriving by bike.

Two wheelbarrows were loaded with bulbs including lots of hyacinths, a selection of hole making tools and a litter picker. Once loaded, Harvey lead the way to the flower beds as this was his second visit to the site, so he knew where to take us. We soon arrived at our destination, 6 flower beds in a pedestrian walkway with residential South Acton at one end and industrial South Acton at the other.

The budding garden designers split into 2 groups, vying for top prize in the Most Beautify Hyacinth Display contest. Team Classicist went for a geometric approach, not able to deal with the disorder of planting bulbs randomly they planted in rows. Team Renegade on the other hand went for a random, scattergun approach, embracing the chaos that exists in nature which isn't planned or designed.

Each team had 45 minutes to design and plant their gardens. Overseeing both teams, Kash made sure there wasn't any funny business going on. The rivalry was mostly fair, other than a few bulbs being sneakily offloaded into the other team's pile, giving them extra work to do.

During this time, Sevan hadn't been granted membership of either team, so he busied himself with other tasks like litter picking (mostly cigarette butts) and hammering the Cultivate stake into the ground to advertise their involvement at the flower beds.

The planting finished just as the darkness was descending. With the last bulb put into the soil, the portable lights came out. They weren't needed to shed light onto the GoodGymers' work but they were perfect for setting up and taking the group photo.

Judging will happen in 3 months time, when we'll know if chaos or order has won the day and will take home the winner's medal.

Last week's group run in Walpole Park enriched us with some wisdom: woodchip is a rare, valuable resource that can be hiding behind iron bars. Today we came prepared with our revised plan of how to get to the heap of that treasure just outside the park gate - to be precise, the closed gate. We needed the fresh woodchip to spread on the paths in the walled garden that we cleared of the old woodchip a week before.

We met outside Bodyline and retraced our run and walk from last week. Lionel, on the roll after the last Saturday comeback, cycled to the start location and was ready for a run. Raj, Sevan and Kash warmed up by running to the start point and also opted for the run. The group of four looped around Walpole and Lammas Parks. Jenni and Ben chose to walk and did a loop around Walpole Park to meet Mike at the secret tool store.

It took us a while to pass the security systems only to trigger the alarm. Uh oh! The team quickly secured the wheelbarrows, shovels and rakes and took an escape route. Kash stayed behind to call ~~their lawyer~~ park's security team. Thanks to our proactive Taskforce, the group knew the action plan and right away set off to collect the woodchip outside the park. Yes, we walked with the wheelbarrows out of the park and then around the fence to get to the woodchip gold. It was not the most efficient way - but it was a good arm workout and an additional brisk walk. That's what GoodGym is about, isn't it?

Eight barrows of woodchip that we imported from outside the park were enough to cover the two paths between the vegetable beds in the walled garden. We finished just about time - it started to rain and the temperature dropped. Guess what happened when we returned to the tool store to put back the tools? The alarm went off again and we couldn't disarm it. We disappeared from the crime scene and hid in a pub - we cannot reveal which one as Walpole Park's Department of Defence must be on our case!

Today's pun has been supplied by Mike.

GoodGym Ealing got involved in multiple new projects and events centred around nature and wildlife in our borough. After working on creating a suitable accommodation for fantastic and reliable Eurasian engineers (beavers!) that are going to settle in Paradise Fields, today we visited another location managed by Ealing Wildlife Group. Costons Lane Nature Reserve, established in May 2022, could be called "Waterworld". There was a marshland, a pond, and a neighbouring sewer. Luckily, no water from the skies (yet!). Most of us took the event organisers' warning (seriously, bring wellies) too lightheartedly. Caroline, who welcomed us to the reserve, glanced at our footwear and knew she would struggle with finding suitable tasks for us.

Harvey, Sevan and Kash ran from Osterley Park, where they volunteered at Harvey's 200th parkrun. Wow! You can guess they have been wearing running shoes. That immediately disqualified them from attending the most valuable activities like building the complex irrigation system to provide habitats for aquatic creatures. Thien, who cycled to the task, didn't bring wellies, neither did Judy. Only Lionel didn't disappoint on the preparation front - he came with his wellies and the tools to fix the hide at the reserve!

In case you didn't know: today was the day Lionel made a big comeback to GoodGym sessions after laying low for a while. Costons Lane was too close to his home to allow for any excuses! Despite having only a short walk to the task, Lionel took the most physically demanding task of shovelling the mud to transform one big pond into smaller ponds. Bringing wellies with you gets you involved in a kind of project like Palm Islands in Dubai - but better! Maybe the scale of Costons Lane is smaller, but it is beneficial for the wildlife.

For the GoodGymers without wellies, Caroline found different tasks. Judy and Sevan collected the bird feeders and refilled them with fresh food. Harvey, together with Lionel, started by fixing the hide. It seemed like there wasn't much to do for Thien and Kash - then an unexpected sapling delivery arrived! Thien had a chance to plant her first tree while filling the gaps in the newly created hedge. Interestingly, they kept finding rubbish in the muddy soil (Caroline warned them about that) and the roots and stems of the previous tree saplings drowned in the mud. Hopefully, the swamp gods will be more merciful for the young trees the GoodGymers have planted today.

The last task was to fish out duckweed from the pond. Judy and Sevan carefully plunged their nets into the murky waters, not sure what monsters they could be poking. Kraken? Cthulhu? Then, a magical word pierced the still air.

BISCUITS.

Sevan's eyes lit up immediately. We could see that even through his shaded glasses and knew it was the call to finish for today and head to the patio in front of the brightly coloured tool container. Biscuits, tea and coffee were served and volunteers' satisfaction doubled. After some small talk in the sunshine, we went our separate ways to have lunch, and for some of us, reconvene at a Slow Ways walk in the afternoon.

I take this volunteering very seriously. So even though I wanted to help Mrs M "tidy up", and the job turned out to be all about gardening, about which I know nothing, I faced up to my responsibilities and readied myself. First step, break into the shed. Apparently her gardening tools were in there but she'd lost the key. With the screws behind the clasp (as they should be) it was a matter of either prising off the clasp and probably break the tongue and groove wood of the shed, or - what a good thing I knew about this possibility in advance - bring along some bolt cutters. Well why not? At least it was an excuse to drive to the job rather than engage in all that pesky running or cycling exercise. Tuck and snip, job done. Then my success at legitimate vandalism really got me into trouble... Mrs M said she had another lock on garden gates that blocked her from using the living room doors because that key was missing too: could I take a look? Maybe it was the GoodGym running vest but I couldn't refuse. But... it was an even larger lock; too big even for my bolt-cutters. What a happy bit of contingency planning that led me to slip a large hacksaw into my tool bag. (And I never even made it to the Scouts.) And on the bright side, seemed like I was going to get some exercise after all. 15 minutes of persistent back and forth later... freedom! But then my troubles really began. Mrs M simply wouldn't believe I knew nothing about gardening. Of all the jobs I might have attempted in her very interesting if somewhat ramshackle garden - and there was enough work to occupy 10 of us let alone just one person - I agreed to help replant into the middle of her lawn the monkey-puzzle-in-a-pot. But, perhaps surprisingly, it wasn't my lack of gardening skills that prevented this from going smoothly. The first hole I dug hit bricks and paving six inches down under the earth. My running shoes (I know I didn't run, but one must keep up appearances) were squidging into the spade and I had no chance against these early Neolithic fort foundations. So, with Mrs M's blessing, I started again 3 feet to the east. Ten inches down and I thought we were in with a chance. Drenched the hole with water, added some bio-feed of some kind, took a moment to prepare myself mentally, lifted the tree out of the pot (it was easy, I was feeling strong: yet more exercise under my belt), and lowered it into the hole. A perfect fit. More watering. Soil scrapped back and pressed into the edges of the hole around the tree roots. More watering. It looked like that spot was made for it: from hacksaw to jigsaw-tight. Now, liking to clear up after myself, I went back to fill in the other aborted hole before I left. (All those GoodGym notices about watching out for trip hazards have certainly sunk in.) Task done. Lock and load. (Or two locks and one for the road?) But who's counting? It was tree jobs for the price of one.