Today's first delivery to the Community Food Cupboard at St Mary's Church arrived just after 8 am, so the GoodGymers missed it. Kash and Martin showed up at 10:30 despite the feeling that the Christmas break did to people's biological clocks more damage than the Daylight Saving change to the Winter Time. Was it really 10:30? Was it even Monday? Luckily, the second van arrived just in time for the volunteers waiting for the unloading session.

Among the ready meals and pastries, there was an abundance of chicken teriyaki dishes, pies and sausage rolls to unpack from the van. There were prawns that used to be frozen but now thawed. There were seven boxes of commercial-size packs of chicken breasts - sadly, those had to go back to the van as the church didn't have facilities to safely and hygienically portion the meat into smaller parcels. There was a cardboard box labelled Houses of Parliament, which collapsed when more cartons were stacked on top of it - such an ominous sign! Finally, there were vegetables, including copious amounts of tomatoes.

It was the five crates of cherry tomatoes and baby plum tomatoes that kept Martin and Kash at the church until noon. After unpacking the van fairly quickly, the GoodGymers were recruited to split the tomato crates into smaller portions and bag them. Whether there were ten thousand tomatoes, they couldn't tell, but there were loads! Enough to have longer chats about running, swimming, cycling and plans for after Christmas Eve. Wait... New Year's Eve! Ah, those festive time lapses again!

With not many people queuing for the food distribution outside the church today, Martin and Kash were spared sorting the last two crates - two or three thousand tomatoes? The surplus was destined to be shipped further - to Salvation Army at Leeland Road - exactly where Kash was heading later today to volunteer at the Soup Kitchen!

After completing the task, the volunteers were welcome to help themselves to tomatoes and other particularly abundant foods to reduce waste. Martin headed off with other volunteers for a coffee, and Kash said she was off for dinner. Wait, dinner? Wasn't that lunchtime? Ah, those festive time lapses!

With several of the regular volunteers having already headed off for Christmas, the team at South Ealing Community Food Cupboard were extra grateful to have four GoodGymers helping out today.

The delivery van turned up on time which meant that Lena, Martin, Mohamed and Alan quickly got to work unloading and unpacking.

Lots of fresh vegetables this week and although Brussels sprouts were notably absent, there were plenty of carrots - including some of the thickest ones we'd ever seen and some of the strangest shapes. Perfect for the finishing touches to a snowman, if Santa can get the weather sorted.