The first day of August brought a pretty solid team to Horsenden Farm, including a wave of new joiners: Rene, Laxmi, and Mairaj. Welcome to GoodGym Ealing - we hope you enjoyed your first task!

Worked on tasks, got along really well, supportive people all around, will attend more sessions. Very helpful and friendly team. - summarised Mairaj in his report

Elsa equipped us with wheelbarrows, shears, loppers, rakes, and even a slasher (which Steph Ducat quickly booked), then led us up Horsenden Hill to a place called Wells Meadows. The meadow was recently scythed, but it has not been raked yet. There was also a corner covered by a huge patch of brambles that, despite bearing delicious, ripe blackberries at that time of the year, were still considered undesirable plants. Our job was to clear the area so that Friends of Horsenden Hill could create a wildflower meadow.

Jamie’s and Gus’s cunning plan included cutting and eating their way to the most juicy blackberries. They found plenty of allies in their war against brambles: Ramona, Sevan, Steph, and, later on, Mairaj. Raking - which turned out to be more of a cardio workout than many may have expected - was handled mostly by Rene and Kash. Laxmi became a jack of all trades, raking, harvesting blackberries, and chopping brambles.

The session at Horsenden couldn’t be considered complete without bringing to life the slogan animals 🐮 + pizza 🍕 + craft beer 🍺. Even though we must admit that animals were hiding today, the GoodGymers didn’t have trouble finding the beer stall and the pizza oven.

What have the new GoodGymers learned today?

• GoodGymers can get quite competitive about the size of the brambles they pulled.
• Brambles produce blackberries.
• Brambles have thorns.
• Thorns scratch.
• Thick gloves protect you from thorns.
• Long trousers and sleeves also protect you from thorns (forget this one - even veteran GoodGymers never seem to learn that fact!).
• If you arrive late for the task, ask for the person with red hair.

We are back at Horsenden Farm next month, hoping for more animals, more new faces, and fewer scratches! Sign up now!

It's been a season of shears, loppers and secateurs in action, particularly at our Tuesday sessions supporting the William Hobbayne charity in Hanwell. Only a week ago, we had cleared a footpath at Half Acre Woods, and now we were back at the Community Gardens to finish off the job we started a month ago - clearing an overgrown area to make room for a new community space.

To reach the Community Gardens, Sevan, Freya, and Harvey ran 3 km from Ealing Broadway. Nishy, Jamie, and Jamie tried to find their way to the task, coming from the canal and getting stuck (thanks, Google Maps!), but were fortunately discovered by Kash and Harvey before they lost hope. Chris, a regular at Hobbayne's sessions, had more luck (or experience) finding the entrance, where Anna, today's task owner, awaited with the tools.

It was the first Ealing group session for Jamie, who was glad he didn't have to work in extreme heat, unlike at his first-ever GoodGym task. GoodGym Ealing not only booked a nice breeze for today but also perfectly dodged the evening rain. We are really good at ensuring top working conditions! Welcome, Jamie - we hope you enjoyed the weather, the task and our company! We're looking forward to seeing you again on another occasion.

The brambles we had removed in June from the overgrown area hadn't started properly growing back yet, so it was an excellent opportunity to clear the other half of the future community space. There was serious hype built up after our previous task in the gardens as we had found a canoe paddle, a tennis ball and a shed hidden in the brambles. This week's findings seemed less exciting.

Kash: "What did you find in the brambles? Anything interesting?"
Freya: "More brambles."

Sevan found particularly long bramble stems that made quite an impression on our newest team members. Little did they know, they'd be pulling equally intimidating blackberry plants themselves if they stuck to us. One of the Jamies already upped his GoodGym game, trying out a new tool: a small slasher to cut through the jungle. He'd love the larger slashers we used for chopping nettles and brambles near Pear Tree Park!

West London brambles are particularly nasty with their oversized, sharp thorns. They were a cause of many ouches today. We all have been bramblestruck! To alleviate the pain from the scratches, Nishy thoughtfully brought us a snack to enjoy at the end of the session: popcorn. Thank you, Nishy! While the real reward was seeing the whole garden space finally cleared of overgrowth, we enjoyed the gift from Anna: freshly harvested radishes from the allotment.

Next week, we are heading towards a different part of the borough. Sign up now to join us for a leaf sweeping and collection task at a school in Acton.

On a cloudy and refreshingly breezy Saturday morning, six GoodGymers and two new Horsenden volunteers met at the foot of Horsenden Hill to help with farm work. Among the GoodGymers, there were two new faces too: Jamie, who joined his third task, and Aislinn (Ash), the first-timer. Both made a grand first impression on the seasoned GoodGymers as open-minded and not scared of today's job: dealing with speciality woodchip! In Elsa's description of the task, there was a promise of a particular sensory profile: an aged barn floor with earthy ammonia undertones. We were in!

Elsa led us to one woodchip pile: crisp and woody, slightly dusty, but not offensive, with aromas of sawdust and dry bark. That sterile heap was to be loaded into wheelbarrows and dropped a few meters away at a larger pile of clean dry woodchip. Since nature abhors a vacuum, the empty space after eliminating that pile was going to be filled with experimental woodchip: the cow-resided kind, scraped diligently from the barnyard floor. It carried the aroma of decomposing hay funk with grassy, smoky and leathery notes. We were thrilled by its organic complexity, although it turned out to be much dustier and less rich than we had expected.

While Jamie, Ash, Gus, Steph Ducat and Kash were exploring the woodchip spectrum (and shovelling really hard for two hours!), Sevan found himself assisting Billy the Cat and one of the new volunteers in a highly precise task for very patient people: pulling messy bundles of chicken wire fencing from behind the barnyard and rolling them into neat, compact cylinders. Those who know Sevan will understand he was a suitable candidate for taking up slow-going, meticulous work. While the woodchip grind carried heavy physical and sensory load, the wire-rolling workout, accompanied by the calm, furry presence of Billy, was meant to build mental resilience.

With 12 pm on the dot and visible results achieved, the hardworking team clocked off to reward themselves with locally made pizza (including a new, limited veggie option), flatbreads, craft beer and speciality coffee. The well-deserved break was a perfect time to chat and get to know each other better.

Looking forward to another opportunity to join us for possibly the most rural experience in West London to have fun, work hard and try amazing baked goods afterwards? Meet us at Horsenden Farm in August!