The usual Friday night short run to South Acton and food shopping for Mr G at Sainsbury's in Chiswick.

I stayed on after coffee time to help out in the kitchen - and serve even more coffee and tea over lunch. Today’s fare was vegetable and lentil soup, pasta (either meat or vegetable sauce) and apple crumble with custard. It was all a huge hit with the clients.

I was back at Ealing Soup Kitchen this morning serving coffee, tea and bowls of cereal. It was a busy session - even the hot water machine gave up at one point. Not surprising with the numerous pots of coffee and tea required. Luckily it was back in operation quite quickly so the clients were kept happy. The supply of chocolate biscuits helped!

As the dark Ealing skies rumbled with Diwali fireworks, three runners with head torches did a loop around Walpole Park and ran into the dead-end at the back of Rickyard Café, inadvertently scaring away a group of youths socialising on the benches. While Sevan stood on guard, Steph and Kash took wheelbarrows and shovels from the park tool store, then all three ventured into the Walled Garden to clear a compost bin they were going to fill. Tall weeds had grown in the space where the woodchip had run out, but removing them was merely a warm-up for seasoned GoodGymers.

The main task for the night was transporting compost, which had been delivered only a few hours earlier, to the empty bin. The pile was destined to be shared for free with local allotments over the weekend (GoodGym is supporting that initiative too!), but the Walled Garden was also going to receive its share. Ensuring the latter was tonight's job.

The trio followed their noses to find the smelly heap without fail. Sevan scented subtle notes of prunes, while for Steph the aroma resembled that of brewery or distillery waste. The team dipped their shovels into the compost heap. The sky thundered with fireworks, but the thick smoke on the ground came from the disturbed fertiliser.

The wheelbarrowed black gold made its way to the compost bin in various styles. Our favourite was Steph's pirate-inspired walking the plank. With each trip from the pile to the bin, the GoodGymers continued to progress to new levels, stacking the front bin planks to prevent compost spillage. The difficulty of the soil drop raised, but teamwork was an easy remedy for that.

When the compost bin was filled and levelled, the fireworks shot into the sky to announce that achievement and didn't stop booming when Steph, Sevan and Kash were leaving the park. In fact, that pyrotechnic fever keeps going while I write this report late in the night.

I will leave you now with this sniffhanger and hope you will join us for the compost giveaway day this Sunday, or our next Tuesday group run with This Girl Can to lift the curfew for exercising women after the clocks go back.

Each Monday morning, GoodGym lend a hand to the South Ealing Food Cupboard, helping the wonderful team of volunteers prepare surplus food for the local community. This week, Nicola, Andy, and Iram braved the rain to get stuck in, and it was a lively morning!

The volunteers were out in force today, peaking at ten people at one point, a record turnout for a rainy day! Andy returned victorious to find the shelf he fixed in a previous session still standing strong (and now proudly displaying popcorn!). It was Nicola’s first GoodGym mission, but you’d never have guessed it, she got straight to work flattening cardboard, unloading the van and offering to lend a hand wherever it was needed.

Despite the soggy weather, Andy and Nicky fearlessly tackled the unloading outside. Inside, the haul was a swede-heavy selection, with plenty of oranges, cabbages and bread. Sadly, not all the fruit was fit for fame, so the team sorted out the squashed and mouldy ones. The real surprise of the day, though, was a giant white sheet cake which looked suspiciously like a wedding cake! The Polygonian Friends Lunch team were quick to claim it for dessert on Wednesday.

Need some motivation to get up from bed on a gray Monday morning? Picture the early bird Harvey, running to South Ealing and meeting Kash at St Mary's Church, where a pallet stacked with fruit and veg awaited to be unpacked. The goods - rescued surplus food from supermarkets - were to be distributed to those in need in the early afternoon. But the delivery had to be first unloaded to the Food Cupboard. And who can handle this better than a pair of swift GoodGymers?

The stretch wrap on the pallet gathered plenty of water, so had to be removed carefully to avoid causing a deluge at the churchyard. The operation revealed exotic treasures, including fifteen boxes of tangerines! No one was really sure whether those small oranges were tangerines, satsumas, mandarins or easy peelers. But we marketed them as tangerines. Wait, did GoodGymers became salespeople?

After quickly unpacking the pallet, moving out crates, and breaking down boxes, Harvey and Kash asked Wayne for another job. Rather than suggesting sorting the fruit or hoovering, Wayne looked at Kash and said:

Can I ask you a big, big favour? Can you give out those tangerines to the children going to school? There will be a big surge of them soon.

That's how Kash and Harvey, not fearing any job and determined to avoid food waste, ended up as vendors.

Instead of the promised surge of children, came a surge of rain. The undeterred easy peeler dealers put themselves out there, and welcomed with a smile both downpour and rejection from cautious parents and children.

Would you like a tangerine? Or two? It's free - and has vitamin C! - Kash.

Have an orange,
Fight the scurvy,
Join the navy,
Become a pirate!
Tried this last week. Didn't work. No one wants to be a pirate these days. - volunteer Gary.

To stick to the marine theme, the promised wave of parents with schoolchildren eventually arrived closer to 9 am. There were even some takers, so Harvey scrambled to pass Kash more and more citruses. A couple of ladies took even a small bag of tangerines each for their families or to distribute at the school. The GoodGymers gave out almost half of a box, which was a pretty good result. Five minutes to nine, it became apparent that whoever was rushing past the church was already late to school. Not wanting to be late for work or whatever was next in their day, Harvey and Kash wrapped up and left enriched with sales experience.