After a great lunch at Horseden Farm with fellow Goodgymers, 3 Goodgymers set off through the woods to their next community mission. A small walk of 2km and we met Jatinder from CIC and Joseph joined shortly after. We did not know what to expect today but we were in for a good typical workout reserved for Goodgym. It was their first time for Maxime and Ashley at this urban garden and were impressed by the vineyards, bee hives and the polytunnel and outside area. Today we had the task to clear a section so that new beds can be installed in the near future and enable more planting. As windy day, it was hard to know what layers to keep on, but Steph Ducat as usual was in T-Shirt and then Ashley soon took his layers off due to the workout. Maxime also started to layer off. The clearing was not as easy as you think as we had to get all the roots out : a lot of bramble roots which seemed to be all connected together and never ending underground. "B"root force was the moto for today and we were able to take loads out. We did find different colored roots from wood brown to black and a weird red. Some also had looks of parts of a human : human heart shaped. After a 90 minute session the 3 Goodgymers beat the roots. We all then left to follow our own "roots" back to different occupations.

As Storm Amy approached Ealing, a whirlwind of West London GoodGymers landed at Horsenden Farm. A strong team of seventeen hasn't been seen in Ealing for a long time. It took the joint forces of Ealing, Hounslow and Richmond to build a do-good brigade so large that it surprised even the task owner, Elsa, who scrambled to find more tasks for them.

We welcomed two new joiners, Bernadette and Tom, who chose to kick off their GoodGym adventure dangerously close to the Gruffalo Trail at Horsenden Hill. With such an impressive team, the chances of being eaten by a Gruffalo were close to zero. At the same time, the odds of having fun with good company while getting active in nature before eating carb-heavy, cheesy goodness from a local bakery were very high!

Our regulars from the Hounslow group runs had a chance to welcome back the unstoppable Lucy after the break she had to take in the last couple of weeks. Great to see you again, Lucy!

Two of the tasks given by Elsa had a lot to do with the mysterious disappearance of Horsenden pigs. The first assignment, taken by Steph Ducat, Iram, Kymm and Gus, was to transfer hay from the broken-down hay bales to the former pig quarters and spread it on the ground. I chose to believe it was to secure the traces of a pignapping crime until the arrival of the forensics team. Steph described the effort as hay-way to hell as the gusts of wind kept blowing the hay out of the wheelbarrows. Kymm reported there were as many techniques to spread the hay as GoodGymers: from gleeful tossing, through grumpy kicking to methodical arranging.

Sevan and Bernadette had a task of clearing weeds, mostly nettles, near the Horsenden Loaf pizza oven. Sevan shared that they were setting the stage for the hog roast the following day. That shed some light on the disappearance of the pigs - they must have escaped when they heard about the whole hog roast enterprise!

The largest squad undertook a mammoth job of clearing brambles to expand a meadow where the farm cows could graze to help establish a grassland with plenty of wildlife on the slope of Horsenden Hill. Gaby, Ariane, Tom, Mairaj, Maxime, Afshin, Thaiza, Lucy and Kash were chopping, lopping or slashing the blackberry invaders while Anita and Ash raked away the cuttings.

The cherry on a cake was that all the activity was observed through the lens of photographer Laura, who did a great job of not interrupting our tasks while capturing the spirit of GoodGym and the beauty of Horsenden Hill. We are hoping our part-time modelling gig today will help spread the word about GoodGym in the coming months. It will probably also disclose our soft spot for Horsenden pizza!

Inspired by today's task? Join the Horsenden session next month! Sign up now!

It’s been 9 years since the 9th August 2016, when 21 GoodGymers set out from Ealing Broadway for Boston Manor Park for the very first GoodGym Ealing session: a park maintenance task combined with light fitness. I wasn’t there. And I never met any of those original Ealing GoodGymers, apart from two guests: Ivo, the founder, and Ed from GoodGym Central. If you look at our website, you cannot even tell anymore who led that session. But does it matter?

Since 2016, 918 GoodGymers in Ealing - that includes guests like John who visited us today - have done over 10200 good deeds! That’s quite a number, isn’t it? Many of those GoodGymers already moved on, left the borough, found other communities, or started families, but all of them contributed to making GoodGym Ealing a little bit better by at least one good deed!

And today, here we were, at Sandy Park in Hanwell, celebrating the 9 fantastic years of connecting with each other to help our community and isolated, older people within it. Some of the people celebrating today were new faces who joined this year. No matter how the group evolves, we are still the community connected by the same idea: doing good while getting fit. At the same time, for every one of us, GoodGym means something slightly different - and that’s ok - because we are all different. GoodGym is not a space where people should feel the need to fit in. GoodGym is here for us and should fit our lives and who we really are.

At last year's birthday party, I asked everyone to share what they think makes GoodGym Ealing great. The overwhelming majority said the people, the company, socialising. That’s why this year’s birthday was simple: a picnic in the park. We enjoyed the sun, the birthday cake baked by Nishy, the banana bread from Iram, who used the surplus fruit from Monday’s Food Cupboard task, the homemade pizza and cakes brought by Lena and Marta, the vegan sushi from John, pizzas and other snacks shared by Ash, Sevan, Steph Ducat, and Gaby. We enjoyed the relaxed afternoon, connecting with each other, and, most importantly, enjoyed being ourselves.

Happy birthday, GoodGym Ealing!

It was nice to have a later start than usual for a Saturday morning task and everyone was keen to earn their crust (and cake and strawberries) ahead of GoodGym Ealing's 9th birthday party in the afternoon. A wonderful 7 GoodGymers came to help Hanwell & Norwood Green Orchard Trail to water and trim one of the closest orchards to their base, The Piggeries.

Steph, Nishy and Gaby took charge of the giant bowser of water, feeding each of the trees in the orchard to keep them healthy and growing fruit through to the end of summer. The bowser was refilled over and over from the canal and in total, 300 litres of water found its way into the ground. With that done, they moved on to fruit removal instead of growing, clearing blackberry bearing brambles from the back fence.

On the edge of the orchard, Kash, Iram, Ash and Sevan were asked to cut back the large hedges bordering the canal towpath, with the warning that there may be some thick and spiky hawthorn branches lurking within. Ash and Iram grabbed shears, working quickly along the sides and top, inside and out, along with HANGOT's own members. Iram enjoyed testing her shear skills on someone else's hedge before trying to trim the one in her back garden. Sevan and Kash were lopping their way along at a slower pace, cutting one thick branch at a time and debating what height the hedge should be. As well as spiky branches, there were a surprising number of adrenaline loving snails who'd climbed high into the bushes and had their homes chopped away as part of the clean up.

Clive from HANGOT was amazed at what had been achieved with 13 volunteers over 90 minutes. The orchard was transformed, meaning that everyone could go and reward themselves for their hard work at the party in the park!