Phew – it was a warm one last night as we returned to the beautiful Chiswick House for another impactful GoodGym session!

This time, our task took us to the dog playground, where a massive pile of mulch was waiting for us. And as well as being huge it was also quite compacted,which added to the hard work. But we weren’t phased. Especially as our aim was to make the dogs of Chiswick as happy as possible with a freshly mulched play area.

Armed with barrows, rakes and enthusiasm, we set to work. The pile soon turned out to be no match for our big team. We raked, shifted, scooped, and (squeakily) wheeled mulch across the playground. Several dogs passed by mid-task, offering us an approving wag – the highest form of praise, obviously.

With the job wrapped up in no time, we relocated to a lovely grassy spot nearby for a bit of strength and conditioning - and a much needed cool down. We worked all the major muscle groups and tested our mettle with various planks. After returning the tools, we jogged back to base for a good stretch and a debrief.

Coming up: We’ve got a mission this Saturday at Chiswick Allotments in the sun.Sign up here to keep the good deeds flowing!

ps Did we mention it was hot?

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.

Monday mornings in Ealing mean South Ealing Food Cupboard, where food that supermarkets have overstocked on is given away to the public, avoiding it being wasted. For some people, it's the most fun that they have with GoodGym, turning carrot chaos into tomato tranquility.

Today was no different, with crates full of oranges and tangerines, fresh turkey and the now common sight of Hello Fresh meal kits that'd been torn open, mixing all of the ingredients together randomly. Alan and Sevan helped some of the regulars haul the second delivery inside, where Iram and Martin were helping to unpack and organise everything in the 2 small rooms that are the Food Cupboard. Eventually everyone moved onto sorting donations and stacking shelves and fridges.

Bananas are ever present too and some of today's delivery had seen better days. Iram took on the task of sorting through the crates, finding the ones that were almost or already turned to mush and disposing of them. There were still a lot of bananas, so everyone grabbed a bunch to take home and there was a tempting stack of biscuit boxes near the door too 😋.