Last December GoodGymers helped Earthwatch Europe plant a new Tiny Forest in Hanger Hill Park. You can see how small the snips had been back then in this story! What is Tiny Forest, you may ask. It is a native woodland of 600 trees planted densely in a tennis-court-sized plot. Tiny Forests mimic the features of a traditional forest while taking up minimal space. Earthwatch is conducting research across the country to help understand how these little woods have the potential to be a powerful tool in the fight against climate change and habitat loss.

To help our partners from Earthwatch, five Ealing GoodGymers: Claire, Freya, Steph Ducat, Sevan and Kash turned scientists for one evening to collect data on how the trees were growing and how much carbon they could capture. The endeavour involved plenty of tape measures and an uphill run!

It was the first Ealing session for Freya, who returned to London (and GoodGym) after a long break and established herself in our area. Great choice, Freya - and welcome to Ealing!

After the optional 2.5km run to conquer Hanger Hill, the task was pretty easy-going. It didn't require getting particularly physical - unless you count squatting to measure the diameter of a tree. That gave Kash an idea about tonight's fitness session - the Sally Up squat challenge! Check it out here if you haven't heard about it.

Another challenge was identifying some of the trees that didn't look like we were expecting them to look. Their tag said holly, but the Google Lens said eucalyptus.

Is there a koala on it?
No.
Then it's not an eucalyptus.

The samples didn't look anything like the above. The Earthwatch survey prompt suggested another option: goat willow. We looked the name up on the internet and found pictures of similarly looking trees to our sample, also called pussy willow or salix caprea. That seemed more sensible than Aussie trees in the UK.

After surveying most of the tagged trees and completing the Sally Up challenge, we treated ourselves to a gentle 1.5 km run down the hill, wondering how satisfied our legs would feel tomorrow.

Join us next week for a task in Hanwell, with a totally optional run, to help organisers of the famous free festival, Hanwell Hootie. Sign up now!

South Ealing Community Food Cupboard were flooded with mysterious brown bags this morning and the big challenge was where to put them all. They had big numbers printed on them, which weren't helpful, then smaller text showing how many people they'd feed. They were undelivered Hello Fresh meal kits, perfect for those who could turn them into something tasty at home.

Mehmet was already hard at work stacking crates onto trolleys when Martin and Sevan arrived. The delivery van was smaller than normal and that meant less food on the Food Cupboard shelves too. Still, everything needed to be moved and the brown bags were loaded, along with a lot of broccoli, sausages and Wasabi ready meals and shuttled to the church building.

There was plenty of chilled food to organise in the limited fridge space, which Martin did his best to solve by playing Wasabi tetris.

"There's no room at the inn" - Martin

Mehmet and Sevan were kept busy with the meal kits. They separated the 2, 3 and 4 person bags to be placed on different shelves, making them easy for the clients to collect.

There were rumours of a second coming of the delivery van, so Martin and Sevan hung around on the off chance that it would. When there was no sign of it by midday, it was time to wrap up.

About a year ago, the kids from Featherstone High School approached Alex, today's task owner, asking about an overgrown space hidden behind the school's football pitches. Was that a garden? Could it become a garden? That's how the idea of the Garden Learnscape started. The students' initiative needed some support from the grown-ups. Gurpal from Southall Transition, who was involved in the project, introduced Alex to GoodGym. Fast forward a few weeks - and here they were!

Steph, Sevan and Kash ran to the school in Southall from their previous task in Pear Tree Park, with a break for lunch on the way. How surprised they were to see Jules, who had joined them at the previous session, turning up at the destination! Jules ran-walked all the way to the Featherstone School to make another spontaneous appearance. Her hands would definitely make the work lighter! Michelle, who walked to the task, completed the GoodGym crew. There were three more volunteers, including Alex and Gurpal and Hishaam from Southall Transition. Teamwork was the greatest strength needed at the first GoodGym session at Featherstone.

Probably the most spectacular achievement of the afternoon was moving the logs from a local park through a secret gate to the garden to create a sitting area. The timber pieces were enormous and we were not sure how to even approach them! The answer was: problem-solving and cooperation. Without those ingredients, the strongest of us wouldn't have dreamt of transporting that garden furniture!

Although everyone was up for the log challenge, there were plenty of other jobs we undertook when not getting physical with the timber: Jules reassumed her pruning trade, which she had proven to be an ace in, Michelle, Alex and Hishaam were weeding and turning the soil in beds, Sevan busied himself with plenty of various odd jobs, including carrying water, and Steph, Kash and Gurpal were working on flattening a giant mound of soil.

The team made fantastic progress on the development of the Garden Learnscape. We are looking forward to the next session in May to spread woodchip on the path and do more weeding. Sign up to join us!

To ask why we do good is to ask why the brambles grow - it is in their nature. Brambles and nettles swallow old paths, woodchip gets washed out by rain and trampled by walkers, and mud comes back to obscure trails. And so GoodGymers and Greenwayers come back to keep the paths alive.

Speaking of great comebacks, Bryon and Christos both found time for some GoodGymming today between the joys of being dads. The award for the most unexpected return goes to Jules, who signed up while the other GoodGymmers were sipping their pre-task coffee at Oscars and still made it to the café herself. Well done Jules - that's the sort of surprise we like the most!

The team walked from Pitshanger to Brent Viaduct to meet Ealing Greenwayers: Richard, Sam and Jim. The objective was similar to those at many previous sessions at the banks of Brent River: make the riverwalk safe and enjoyable to all visitors. Were the activities repetitive then? By no means!

We were up to a lot of diverse jobs:

• Security - Jules and Richard cut through the wilderness to open the sides of the path and remove all the potential dodginess,
• Diving - Richard, Jim, Kash and Christos went skip diving to rescue a few paving slabs,
• Jigsaw puzzles - Steph Ducat, Sevan and a few others laid out additional slabs on the path to prevent people and dogs from walking on the mud,
• Bottomless barrow - Bryon and Sam kept topping up our wheelbarrows and buckets with fresh woodchip like there was no tomorrow!

There was, of course, wheelbarrowing and raking like at any other woodchip-focussed task. If you've done woodchipping in the past, you know the drill. If you haven't - maybe it's time to give it a try? Why not lend us a hand at the nearest opportunity in May?

In 90 minutes our 9-people team has completed revitalising the path - such a rewarding feeling to see it rejuvenated (and improved) at the whole length! We also got some shoutouts from the park visitors!

Next month we are up for another adventure in Pear Tree Park - bramble and nettle bash by the river. Sign up now!

Today's Pitshanger Junior parkrun had some fairground vibes, with lots of families in the park enjoying themselves, mostly. The runners were working hard to earn tokens that they could trade in after the funnel.

In the funnel, the finishers got to play dogems after one child crossed the line with a dog on a lead, blocking the funnel and raising questions around if they'd run the whole 2km. Sevan managed to record their time and everyone else who crossed the line while the inquest was ongoing. Elsewhere, there were smashes too. Smashing high fives that is, as the runners smacked the outstretched hands of the marshals who included Kash, Jacquie, Harvey and Steph .

There were 86 runners who finished and got some big cheers. One more also got the cheers, then stopped 10 metres short of the line and would not go any further, insisting that they would only go to the nearby playground. No amount of convincing would get them to cross the line.

A challenge was waiting in Mr R's garden, a petrol mower. It had "Easy Start" emblazoned on it, which may or may not have been true. Mr R claimed it was better than his previous model

"Let's see how good you are at starting" - Mr R

There was only one way to find out. A minute later, partly burned exhaust fumes were wafting around the garden. Nice work Honda (and Kash)!

Kash began mowing the lawn and Mr R had a surprise for Sevan, a well stocked shed containing plenty of tools including a battery powered strimmer. Mr R wanted everything in the flower bed nearest the house to go, which would be Sevan's job. Grass, bushes, bluebells... everything was to be strimmed to the ground. Looking carefully, there were hidden dangers. Statuettes were lurking amongst the plants and needed to be removed before chopping started.

The strimmer was good with grass, so-so with thick bluebell leaves and no good with bushes, so Sevan went back to the tool shed to get some shears and secateurs. In this case, the manual tools worked better. Sevan chopped everything down to size while chatting away to Mr R about his sporting past, the history of the area and Laurel and Hardy, who Mr R was a big fan of. To Kash, they looked identical to characters called Flip and Flap. Mr R said that Kash and Sevan reminded him of the slapstick duo, but who was Laurel and who was Hardy? 🤷

With the main jobs complete, Kash went bramble hunting to clear them from flower beds at the back and sides of the garden, with Sevan joining at the end to complete the task. They were good at starting and good at finishing, leaving Mr R happy with his garden. Success!