Last Tuesday, Walpole Park was an arena for a foot-orienteering race, an unforgiving bramble bashing and unrestricted cake munching. Steph, Sevan and Kash met Hounslow GoodGymer Gus, who came for his first session in Ealing and astonished us with his Houn-fast pace on the run to the task! Feeling that we were ahead of time, we added an extra half-loop around the park to the distance, running past confused Ijo and Milly, who were waiting for us at Rickyard.

Jon the Ranger asked us to tackle three rogue bramble colonies, and we decided to take on the big one, closest to the northeastern entrance to the park. That is where we met Claire and Clare, the latter with her trusty hand secateurs. Undeterred by the sight of thorns, we pressed on, encircling the cluster of brambles from all directions. We decided to leave the wheelbarrows at the tool store and bring a proper siege machine: the big trolley. We meant business.

Long loppers, thick gloves and bear claws were good protection against the brambles. The biggest challenge was... signing Steph's birthday card in secret! Yes, that's right - the Ealing group run night coincided with Steph's birthday.

Well-timed birthday, Steph. Joyeux anniversaire!

Having cleared the whole patch of brambles in one location, we sent Steph to dispose of the last full trolley of cuttings, so that we bought ourselves time to prepare him a surprise. Sevan accompanied Steph to help him / slow him down. When they returned to Rickyard's backyard, a chocolate fudge birthday cake was on fire. Steph saved the cafe by blowing all the burning candles in one go. Woohoo! He also brought an alternative cake himself (apparently that's a French custom). That meant a double cake for us and, for Steph, running with a cake - not an unusual sport among Ealing GoodGymers!

Speaking of sports, tonight's monthly social, organised by our indispensable Milly, took place in Boom Battle Bar, where we enjoyed crazier golf and a couple of pool games.

Removing invasive brambles from the park may seem like a small thing, but helps the rangers and a few volunteer gardeners keep the paths safe and accessible to the public.

Next week we will be helping the William Hobbayne Charity cut back summer growth at Half Acre Woods. We are hoping to see you there - don't forget to sign up!

Despite the short notice change in task, six GoodGymers made their way to Walpole park, to help Ealing Park Rangers fighting back against the vicious bramble growths around the park!

Sevan, Paul, Madhan and Christos met at The Rickyard, with Kash getting an early start on acquiring the necessary tools, supplies and trolley to demolish this latest area of brambles. The team then made their way towards the South entrance of the park, meeting up with Kate at the newest site for clearing up, to help with the safety around the park.

But first, Madhan celebrated an incredible achievement of 300 good deeds, and today’s was a fitting task for someone with such a level of GoodGym experience, in preparing to battle this beast of brambles!

Picking up our shears and loppers, the team set to work on the brambles, leaving nothing in our wake. Brambles were chopped and tackled from the bottom, dragged out and piled onto the trolley for carting off to the waste pile.

With the blackberries starting to ripen amongst the brambles, a few GoodGymers were courageous enough to try these out - apparently these are still a little on the sour side from the taste tests!

Another large bramble patch was destroyed, opening up the surrounding paths and creating a safer area for pedestrians.

You may have heard about the Ealing Summer Festivals hosted each year in Walpole Park. Beer Festival? Jazz Festival? Blues? Comedy? Tonight, the popular park in the heart of the borough was the venue for the alternative Bramble Bash Festival organised by GoodGym Ealing, who luckily just missed the worst rain that evening.

The festoon lights lit up when runners Sevan and Kash finished their loops around Lammas and Walpole Park and met Christos who walked to the task. Penny cycled for her first Walpole Park x GoodGym experience and was happy to learn she could lock her bike in a safe place. Having left Penny's bike as a pawn in the Rickyard's tool store, we borrowed loppers, shears, secateurs, two pairs of extra-thick gloves, a rake, and a trolley.

Even such a refined historic park as Walpole is not 100% bramble-free. In several locations, the thorny stems encroached on the pathways, so Ranger Jon gave us a map showing the bramble sites in need of a GoodGym intervention.

While cutting our way through the bramble jungle, we questioned whether the nettles and thistles needed to be removed too - not because they were equally unpleasant to touch - they were on the way to the brambles. We started discussions about the future of the Earth, where the weeds are left to their own devices, undisturbed by the likes of GoodGymers and Greener Ealing. Our collective imagination painted a dystopian world dominated by brambles and bindweed. We had to prevent that turn of events!

One hour and two fully loaded trolleys later, most of the brambles disappeared and retreated far away from the pedestrian path.

Next week our team of overgrowth shredders is running, walking or cycling towards North Ealing to decimate shrubs at St Andrew's Church and Community Centre. Sign up now to join us!

The last part of the Antiques Roadshow Planting Trilogy (featuring the Snail Blazers and Plantum Physics) had no plants left in the pots.

The non-GoodGym gardeners finished the planting over the week, but the last job the rangers needed from us was mulching. But when to do it?

On a sunny late Friday afternoon, Sevan and Kash finished the Hootie setup task at the library early and seized the moment. They ran to Walpole Park - not to catch the sun after work like most visitors that day - but to do some spontaneous GoodGymming.

They grabbed shovels and wheelbarrows from the Rickyard and raided local woodchip piles in broad daylight to collect mulch, which they spread around the newest additions to the plant family outside the Walled Garden. Finally, the perfect stage design was complete! Their actions caught some attention of passersby, so we are hoping for new GoodGym sign-ups! 😉

Did you know that Pitzhanger Manor in Walpole Park, along with the surrounding area, will soon be the filming location of the Antiques Roadshow? Because of that, the rangers and volunteers are carrying planting activities, turning the ordinary grass patches into elegant flowerbeds.

A small but effective team of GoodGymers had a go on the planting task one Saturday in April. Tonight, GoodGym was returning with some experience and twice as many people to try to finish off the planting. Was the work easier this time?

There are no great GoodGym adventures without challenges!

⏱️ We were tight on time! It was a group run, so we needed to adjust the timings to account for that (well done Ijo on keeping a steady pace! 🙌)!

🍕 We had a booking for a monthly pizza social! That meant time was even more precious! The planting team - including the newest addition to the team, Georgina, worked extra hard to complete the whole geranium patch - and we did it! We only managed to wrap up on time because we had Milly leading the group to the venue, and Steph staying to help with putting away the tools.

⛔ The code to the lockbox didn't work! Luckily, the ranger was on duty 🫡 and saved the day, answering the call. Otherwise, we might have gone straight home (or for the pizza 😋)!

🖍️ There were no markings on the ground this time! Luckily, Annabel kept her eyes wide open and figured out the exact planting location from the photos we had! Sevan's knowledge of the location from the previous task allowed us to start digging right away.

🌱 The soil was not prepared this time! We had to deal with removing a large patch of grass first. It was a blessing to have Claire on the team, with her gardening expertise and the brilliant idea to use forks, not just shovels, to quickly prepare the ground.

🧱 There were bricks in the soil! In some areas we used brute force, in others we worked around the bricks. The plants may not ended up evenly distributed, yet they made their way to the soil!

🍂 We had to do some mulching too! With a bigger team, not everyone could do the planting. Taskforce Mike, Milly and Steph knew the drill and volunteered right away to wheelbarrow the woodchip and distribute it gently between the existing plants.

Thank you, Amazing Team, for the incredible effort in such a short time! 🤩 You totally deserved the pizza prize after the task!

Next week we are finally back to St Andrew's Church to help create gravel paths in their Pocket Allotment. Sign up now!

What is the standard modus operandi of GoodGymers at Walpole Park? Sneak into the Rickyard tool store when it's dark, take some wheelbarrows, rakes or shovels, then make a gardening transformation while shrouded by night. When our amateurishness in the gardening craft comes out, at least no one can see it until the morning! Today's session was nothing like that.

GoodGym Ealing had already a busy schedule of evening group runs in the spring. But how could we turn down Ranger Jon's offer to do planting by the Walled Garden - especially knowing that three episodes of Antiques Roadshow would be filmed around Pitzhanger Manor and Gallery in May? We decided to take a challenge and perform in front of the audience on Saturday morning as gardeners.

"Excuse me, can you tell me if those flowers that you are planting need a lot of maintenance?" - asked a passerby seeing our exploits.

We must have been making a good impression out there, in the open, if we were asked for gardening advice! Unfortunately, we didn't know the answer and that's where acting experts ended.

"What are those marks?", enquired another lady looking at the markings on the ground below us, "I thought there were large snails. They leave trails."

Until now, we were sure that the clear markings with boundaries between planting sections, plant codes and the expected quantity of plants were left for us a couple of days before by Ranger Jon. Now creeping thoughts have entered our minds: snails as garden designers! Did those crafty creatures dictate to us which plants to put nearer to the wall and which closer to the path so that they would get easy access to their favourite leaves to munch on? Or maybe Antiques Roadshow tried to cut on budget by hiring snails?

Whoever had put those intricate trails on the ground, we followed them. With four people on the team, we managed to plant:

• 10 x iris foetidissima
• 13 x tiarella wherryi
• 13 x bergenia cordifolia

We will have a chance to finish the job at the 7th May group run, so go ahead and save the date!

We are hoping that the garden designer snails and the GoodGym volunteers will be getting a mention in the Antiques Roadshow credits!