"Welcome to the local branch of the Garden of Eden" - said Trevor of the Ealing Transition initiative at the sight of seven GoodGymers.

Trevor's community group takes on the challenge of climate change on a local level by installing solar panels at schools, beekeeping and planting orchards. One such orchard was located in Lammas Enclosure, not far from Ealing Broadway, and was amongst the favourite spots for GoodGym Ealing group runs. Last Sunday, the orchard saw a different group of volunteers, including children, at the working party. The residents who joined the event left the place with more cardboard and mulch under the trees and fewer brambles around them. Would that mean there was nothing to do for GoodGymers? No way!

Sevan led tonight's run to the task and helped Trevor oversee and support the GoodGymers in activities that needed an extra pair of hands at a time. Milly, as usual, could be seen with a watering can, at the raised beds inside and outside the orchards and at the frog pond. It was a scorching day, so plants needed urgent watering. Chris and Mike had a good chance to catch up and chat while enjoying a shovel-and-mulch workout. Who needs an indoor gym to do that? Beata and Steph were driving the wheelbarrows filled by Chris and Mike into the orchard and dropping the mulch around the fruit trees, which the Sunday group hadn't got the time to tackle. One of the trees needed extra attention - its branches were tangled by unforgiving brambles. Kash dived under the tree and snipped away the thorny stems at the bottom.

"Never walk past a bramble without snipping it. I may go for your neck!" - Trevor.

Steph, who made a wise decision to bring his thick gardening gloves, collected the prickly trimmings and ended up avoiding the scratches pretty well, despite wearing a running vest.

The last task to address was turning the soil in the raised bed, which was taken care of by Beata and Sevan. The gang finished off ahead of time, making Trevor very happy about the state of the orchard. When outside the enclosed area, the GoodGymers started looking around for the candidates for future tasks. Someone suggested trimming the hedge at the boundary of the orchard, however, Trevor was reluctant to make any drastic cuts.

"A hedge is a multi-storey space for living things" - Trevor.

We left the orchard ensured by Trevor that the brambles would inevitably grow back and generate more maintenance work for us in the future months.

While we are waiting for the brambles to strike back, next week we are running to help the William Hobbayne Community Centre in Hanwell, where we are going to stay for a GoodGym Ealing birthday party. 🎂🥳🎊

A last minute change of task brought GoodGym Ealing back to Lammas Orchard, where task owner Trevor had prepared a giant new pile of woodchip for the team's wheelbarrowing pleasure. In addition, there were raised beds to water and an explosion of invasive plants to trim back.

Claire, Kash and Steph Ducat started by moving woodchip onto the untreated paths and managed to complete the main routes through the orchard. Meanwhile, Clare, Alaa, Milly and Sevan were chopping away at brambles, pulling sticky weeds and taking down anything else spiky and likely to put people off from walking through the orchard. There was a lot of cat talk going on in the group and no mention at all of current affairs, with everyone sticking to furrier ground.

Milly took on the final task of looking after the raised beds that sit outside the orchard. The roses in the raised beds were already in bloom, while the strawberries and redcurrants were still working on being juicy enough to be eaten. Milly tended to their affairs, watering the redcurrants to make sure they achieve their destiny this summer.

Satisfied with their work, the GoodGymers returned their tools to the storage area in the Rickyard with some elegant formation wheelbarrowing.

There is a lot of mystery shrouding the history of the Lammas Snail Worshippers. Some academics trace their origins to the Rickyard in Walpole Park, while other historical records associate them with the cult of Bodyline Druids known for their weekly rituals performed in a circle close to the sacred grounds of Haven Green.

Their places of worship are often described as quiet, secluded areas, like clearings in woods and forests, and circles of wooden logs. One such site is preserved in modern Britain and appears to be maintained by the local druids: the Lammas Enclosure. Today's druids' reverence for Nature encourages them to plant trees in sacred groves, remove invasive species like brambles and create holy paths with woodchip.

The primary philosophical posture of the Lammas Snail Worshippers is one of love and respect towards all of life – towards fellow human beings, but primarily snails. That love is often expressed in constructing snail temples inside wooden log circles. Probably the most famous log circle in Britain is a megalithic monument in Lammas Park dating back to May 2024. Its alignment with the solar and lunar cycles suggests the importance of harmonising human activities with the natural and cosmic cycles. Most importantly, the circle contains a sacred hollow log, believed to be a temple.

This unique site embodies the druidic fascination with slugs, the homeless deities without a shell who need a sacred dwelling. The hollow log serves as the slug home and gives the druids a sense of serving Nature and connecting the people with the snails.

The mysticism of snail temples often intersects with various other traditions and practices such as the harvesting of burdock in Elthorne Park. This ceremonial act, performed with great reverence, before the summer solstice, can be observed on the 28th of May.

A group of 10 GoodGymers, including first timer Kate, descended to Lammas Orchard tonight by piloting their intergalactic wheelbarrows through the atmosphere, steered by rakes and shovels. When they arrived, they found piles of small organic pieces (woodchip) and larger organic chunks (aka chopped logs) in the grounds. Looking at the different forms of matter and their tools, the group wondered if they could be used to improve the planet they'd landed on.

Moving into the garden, the group found that the paths were part woodchipped and a strange wooden log circle was placed in the middle of it. Out of the bushes emerged a being holding something called Strongbow. Much of what he said didn't make sense until their translators managed to interpret:

"Each of these logs was a person. This one here with a hole in it was John" - Strange being

Clearly this was a local burial ground and the beings were somehow transformed into inanimate objects. What a strange place this was. The group's thoughts went back to the pile of logs at the entrance and how those ex-beings must have been unceremoniously placed on top of each other. What about the chips of wood. Were they mini beings?! The GoodGymers decided that they all deserved better than laying around in mounds.

The group split into two, with one part focused on honouring those big beings who'd been woodened. They set out to create a memorial circle like the one that honoured John's memory. The wooden beings were carefully transported to the newly created shrine.

The second group focused on what they thought must be the little beings. Their destination was less orderly. They meandered through the garden like a river, curving and threading themselves between the trees. The path was never taking the direct route from point to point. How curious.

After an hour, the mothership called. It was time to report back on what the GoodGymers had found on the planet. They grouped in the wooden circle they'd created and waited to be sucked back into orbit where they'd tell stories of the unusual culture that they had encountered and update their guide to the galaxy to include this planet, Earth.

On a dark Tuesday night, a couple of officers from Ealing Patrol Service sat in their car, watching hypnotising flashes of the lights mounted on top of their vehicle. It was the most exciting sight they could hope for in the tranquillity of nighttime Walpole Park.

Suddenly, three wheelbarrows rolled in front of their car. The officers blinked in disbelief.

Are those wheelbarrows?!

We are a volunteer group called GoodGym. We borrowed some tools from ranger Jon to help in the community garden across the road. We know it's dark and that it looks weird.

The people with wheelbarrows disappeared into the darkness. The officers weren't sure whether they were hallucinating or not.

In the neighbouring Lammas Park Enclosure, fairies were having a party at the wooden circle in the middle of the community orchard. When they heard loud wailing, they hid in the holes of the trees and under the bark of old logs surrounding the party area. No one would tell that the pixies were having a good time there a few seconds ago. Only a blue plastic carrier bag with an empty beer can inside rolled through the orchard like tumbleweed.

The wailing noises were coming from a wheelbarrow borrowed from Trevor of Ealing Transition, the mastermind behind tonight's movements in the Enclosure. And there were quite a lot of movements happening! First, the GoodGymers, the people who brought the haunted wheelbarrow and three well-behaved barrows, moved the old, rotting logs from the fairies' circle into a dedicated log decomposition zone. They replaced the decommissioned logs with new ones that would make nice seats for the fairies. The GoodGymers even built a coffee table in case Tinker Bell and her mates needed some caffeine to pick them up the next day after the night out. Finally, they spread woodchip from a nearby pile onto the ground at entrances to the Enclosure. Fairies didn't need it to avoid walking on muddy paths. They can fly over the mud after all! The woodchip carpet was made of milled thuja that brought an irresistible forest scent into the Transition Garden.

Once the GoodGymers were gone, the fairies resumed the party, wrecking the new wooden furniture in their magic circle and rolling in thuja chips.

Next week, the GoodGym crew will be wheelbarrowing a different cargo - check out the session in Acton here. We hope to see you there!

Steph earned his wings at today's task in the Transition Garden. Less than 5 months in to his GoodGym life, he'd completed 100 Good Deeds and seen the garden's hillock of wood chip reduced to nothing. Steph had done a fair bit of that shovelling himself and today was no different 💯

4 runners, Steph, Kash, Christos and Sevan started off the evening with a quick run around Walpole Park, followed by the usual breaking in to the storage at the Rickyard, then escaping with wheelbarrowfuls of tools. Tonight, the 4 GoodGymers startled the park goers who were relaxing on benches by running past them in the dark, head torches ablaze, with plastic wheels rumbling and tools dancing around the bed of the barrow.

They met Milly and Jenni who suspected that some people were loitering in the darkness. The others turned their head torches on to full power and ventured in, finding some young folk hiding at the back. The approaching light seemed to scare them off, so the garden was quiet again!

Divya arrived soon after and today's job was described as:

1. Chop brambles from around the fruit trees
2. Placing wood chip around the base of the now freed trees

There weren't enough cutting tools, nor shovels for the 7 people who came, but they made do. Kash and Jenni used their expertise to identify the fruit trees. Everyone got down to either chopping brambles or filling up the wheelbarrows.

By the end of the task, the main objectives were complete and also: 1. The wood chip pile was completely decimated 2. The team was mentally prepared for a new fir scented hill in January created from this year's Xmas trees.

All that was left to do was to celebrate Steph's acheivement in the pub with a tasty slice of cake or two 🍰