Was an absolute pleasure to work with Mark and the warm friendly team at the Food Bank via St. Simon’s Church in getting food and supplies ready for all.

Shout out to everyone for their donations and to Gail’s bakery for all the bread and pastries to the food bank.

It was easy to see why Ms J is so proud of her garden - a beautiful plot laid out with mature shrubs, roses, fruit trees and a separate vegetable plot. Sadly a recent severe deterioration in her eyesight means she can no longer keep it looking at its best.

Enter a GoodGymer, eager to help as always. Ms J guided me through the setting up of her lawnmower and helped untangle the cabling, which meant that after a short intense bit of work in the summer heat, the lawn was soon looking much tidier.

Onto the main task - tidying up the bushes. Ms J was particularly keen to open up access to a plum tree currently bearing lovely fruit. That necessitated lopping away some very thorny rose bushes and in particular, hacking down some grape vines that had almost completely taken over the area.

The time flew by with horticultural guidance from Ms J and her fascinating reminiscences of her time living in the area. We soon amassed a large pile of severed rose branches and grapevines leaving the area looking a lot tidier.

A plum job indeed.

Clearing up the view was the mission, and swiftly it was done. The tree had grown quite a bit since last cut so my job was to cut the most i could. now not much is left and the garden view can ve enjoyed from the bench! As some time was remaining I tidied up one more bush and was done for the day.

Ms J's flat looked hugely better today compared to the first time that Sevan came in April. The living room was mostly box free for a start. Alan joined him this time to help Ms J unpack and organise whatever was still boxed up in Ms J's bedroom. The priority for today was to find kitchen equipment.

Without any idea of the contents of each box, a random one was taken to look through with Ms J. It had an interesting mix of items, vases, scarves and underwear. The vases were put on display and the 2 men present decided to leave the underwear for another day as it wasn't useful cookware.

Onto box 2, which contained bedding. Ms J was still light on storage, so emptying this box would need to wait too. Ms J told the pair that she didn't know what was inside the remaining boxes as they were stacked on top of each other. With no drawers or wardrobes for the clothes, that was a tough problem that would need an ingenious solution.

While Alan chatted away with Ms J and moved onto the next box, containing a Ms J favourite, cosmetics, Sevan grabbed a kitchen knife and got creative. Ms J had 4 wardrobe boxes where some of her clothes hung. Sevan used his (non-existent) surgical skills to cut a window into the side of each one, letting Ms J see what was inside.

There was definite progress, with a lot of packing materials taken to be recycled at the end of a mission. The boxes that weren't sorted through were labelled with what types of things were inside and none of them looked to have kitchen equipment, so that remains a mystery for next time.

Four Goodgymers from Hounslow and Ealing were so keen to hang out with each other they signed up for not one but two tasks helping out Traid with their stock clearance. TRAID is an environmental charity working to tackle and solve the problems caused by producing, consuming and disposing of clothes.

After finishing up at the Hammersmith store, Sevan and Kash set off on foot, while Chris and I jumped on our bikes and headed over to Shepherd’s Bush, where we met Holly.

The five of us got stuck in, removing clothes from hangers, piling the stock into giant boxes and collecting the hangers up and boxing them away. Every season the Traid stores do a rotation and restock and Goodgym has been helping out for several years now.

The team at Shepherd’s Bush are always pleased to see us and within an hour we’ve usually powered through and cleared the store. Tonight was no different.

It was the yearly Age UK summer party, which celebrates the fantastic volunteers that help out week in and week out at the Hammersmith & Fulham branch. So GoodGym were out to help volunteer for the volunteers!

Peter from the charity helped settle us in. It was a slightly chaotic start to the evening, as the weather decided it didn’t want to play ball and the plan of a lovely drinks reception in the garden was thwarted by the British weather. Doesn’t rain for weeks and it decides to pour the day of the summer party, typical eh?

Despite the drizzle, we had a funny old time helping serve drinks to the guests. We then went from pouring Prosecco to plating up pilau, as it was time for food. The Age UK chef had cooked up a fabulous curry feast, with all the trimmings! The room smelt amazing, as Michelle ladled out lamb and Cookie dished out Dahl to the hungry volunteers.

Once everyone was served, we were able to sample the absolutely delicious culinary delights, which were second to naan. All the volunteers were well fed and watered tonight!

Although our tummies were bursting with Bhajis and full of food, we had to keep calm and curry on, as plates needed to be cleared and pudding prepped.

Lizzie made sure everyone still had a full glass, whilst we tidied the tables to the sound of the evening’s entertainment: Lucy was belting out Neil Diamond and Frank Sinatra… The professional singer also joined in, although he wasn’t able to do it whilst carrying a stack of washing up!

Dinner service complete, the empty platters were moved back to the kitchen, where they were washed up and Katie and Lucy helped dry the dishes, and put away the plates. The final task for the evening was pudding! Everyone got a table service serving of fruit salad, and Lizzie made sure those who wanted also got a drizzle of cream to go on top.

From a drizzle of cream to the drizzle outside, our evening was over as we cleared up and left the volunteers to enjoy the rest of their party!