Chop shop!

After a restorative combination of fresh air, cow muck, company of farm animals, pizza and wandering around Nature Festival stalls at Horsenden Farm, Sevan, Paul and Kash walked up Horsenden Hill. They carefully avoided the Gruffalo Trail to not encounter the scariest of animals in the woods: preschool children. At the (almost) top of the hill, they entered Horsenden Grape & Honey Farm where Feeding Ealing, a charity that focuses on growing vegetables and fruit for the community, was establishing their new base.

The Feeding Ealing project was started off by the Heston Lions Club, who are part of Lions International, the largest service organisation in the world! They are very active in Ealing, joining many projects GoodGymers were involved in too, like Ealing Soup Kitchen, Western Road Urban Garden and others. Our teams seemed to keep missing each other, so it was a real pleasure to finally meet their volunteers at the Feeding Ealing session and work side by side for our local community!

The GoodGymers were at the forefront of a great transformation, alongside the Lions, and their first-ever task at the to-be urban garden was cutting into a jungle of bushes, trees and brambles! Mark, the task owner, pulled out brand new tools and gardening gloves with absolutely gorgeous patterns from his car's trunk. Kash was eyeing the PPE with cactuses but those were claimed by Sevan, who soon discovered they might be too thin for brambles. In the meantime, Kash obtained a pair of equally classy gloves with flowers and butterflies. The tools included three secateurs, which didn't seem too durable, but Sevan, Paul and Kash were up for the challenge, regardless of the gear they got. Before starting on the task though, the experienced thicket terminators advised Mark on which tools would be the most effective. Jatinder, a volunteer from Heston Lions Club, took up the tools & PPE supplier job and raced to the local DIY supermarket to procure more equipment.

One pair of secateurs was particularly unfortunate and lasted only for an hour, but brought havoc amongst the bushes before being retired. In the meantime, Jatinder supplied GoodGymers with way better armaments. Sevan chose shears to bring mayhem to the cluster of brambles that stood in his way. Paul picked up a good, old-fashioned saw to decimate the chunkiest of trees in the jungle. Kash, who likes to claim "big wins" with the least effort, tactically chose the quickest and deadliest tool: the loppers. The young trees didn't stand a chance against those and got knocked down like in the Tunguska event. Paul decided to drop the saw and do some extra steps, helping Jatinder carry the whole trees to a pile with the trimmings.

Not knowing that GoodGymers were still under the effects of performance-enhancing pizza, Mark brought an abundance of refreshments: water, sandwiches and bananas. There were also wotsits and lemon cake.

"They are orange, that means that's healthy food!" - Mark
"Yes, they must be rich in vitamin C!" - Sevan

After making massive progress in removing the bushes, the GoodGymers treated themselves to some of the goodies, then finished off the day of volunteering, leaving the rest of the nourishment for the Lions volunteers and the remaining bushes for chopping another day.

We are not done with the pruning yet, so watch for the next Feeding Ealing event full of chopping and Mark's jokes - he promised he will invent some new ones for the next session!