With the return to school looming, there are parents across the land cheering (including Rebecca) and children lamenting the end of the summer holidays. Back to school means new school clothes and that's no different for Care4Calais' clients, some of whom will be going to UK schools for the first time.

Packing school clothes and shoes was the priority for the GoodGym team today. With building work ongoing at our usual location, the stock needed was spread across different places and the stock room wasn't as well organised as it usually is.

First up was to find school shoes for the new students. With the smallest ones starting at nursery, there were some tiny feet to protect and everyone was working at at different scale to the usual Care4Calais sessions. With some sizes unavailable, they did the best they could, hoping that larger pairs would quickly be grown into.

Then, there was a change of location to Care4Calais' offsite storage to find clothes for the children. Boxes were helpfully labelled "10-11 years, grey" or "4-5 years, grey", which was great as most schools expected grey clothing and each GoodGymer was working on packs for a particular age group. Peering into the boxes, the sizes and colours were all jumbled together and not as ordered as they claimed, leading to a lot of rummaging and calling to others when unexpected sizes or colours were found.

Even with the extra challenges and the mid-session road trip, the team managed to complete all of the requests and clothe all the children, even if a few will have a slightly baggy style for a term or two.

Five GoodGymers met four Ealing Greenwayers near the Perivale Park Athletics Track for their last summer event this season. It was not a race or a competition. Two teams worked together against the ivy that had swallowed the fence between the track and the car park in Pear Tree Park. To make the job safe, the Greenwayers marked four parking spaces as out of order with a stretch of barricade tape and a few cones. That setup, together with Richard's Walpole Park Volunteer hi-viz, must have made us look like a legitimate force to be reckoned with.

A thick coating of ivy was covering everything: the fence, the soil, and even more layers of ivy - can you imagine that? We didn't even know where to start, but with a team of nine, we could begin in several places at once! Shears, loppers, forks, spades and saws were in action. Thanks to the team's relentless effort and Richard's mastery of ad-hoc tool-sourcing, an incredible amount of ivy was removed and wheelbarrowed into a hidden ivy graveyard behind a hedge.

"A totally superb Goodgym onslaught today, thanks so much. It will now be possible for Greener Ealing staff to tidy up and lay woodchip. We've made their job so much easier." - Richard.

We are taking a strategic break from the sessions with the Greenwayers for the remaining two summer months - but worry not! We may do an odd session to support Pear Tree Park by the River Brent - as we did later today, bashing the Himalayan balsam. We are also looking forward to reuniting with the Greenwayers in September, during Ealing Climate Week - sign up for the occasion now!

On a hot, sunny Saturday, the June edition of the HANGOT workday took us to Elthorne Terraces Orchard (or the one "by the Bambi") to deal with unfair competition against fruit trees. Hemlock, brambles, nettles, burdock - we didn't want to see any of that around the orchard tree trunks. Another problem was caused by the fruit trees themselves - tree suckers and self-seeded saplings were stealing nutrients from the originally planted trees and had to be removed.

Six regulars from the HANGOT crew: Mirjam, Clive, Hilary, Magda, Chris and Brian were joined by four GoodGymers, making the team size a decent, round number! The towpath was a lovely route to get to the task. Penny walked to the session while Christos, Steph Ducat and Kash ran different distances to reach the orchard. Steph arrived early, as usual, and Mirjam put him on his favourite watering duty to keep him busy before others showed up.

Walking down the canal path towards Brentford, the GoodGymers saw a pair of swans with five cygnets. Clive said the bird couple had been trying to have babies for a long time, facing challenges like a flooded nest and soggy eggs, and, finally, was lucky to glide upstream with a line of their little ones between them. What a sight it was!

At Elthorne Terraces we saw more examples of nature thriving, such as a quince tree producing plenty of fruit! They weren't ripe yet, of course, but we learned where the quince spot was - a handy knowledge when the foraging season comes! Life does not always prevail - at Elthorne Terraces, we found out that one of the fruit trees had died, and we have been chosen to help it with its last journey. Christos sawed the tree, and Kash chucked its trunk into the bushes like a javelin. Farewell tree! May the circle of life make good use of your remains!

The summer is looking fantastic, and we want to take advantage of long days in June to help HANGOT more than once a month! Join us on Monday in a week's time for a work evening at the canalside orchards - sign up here!

The weather forecast this Saturday was not as optimistic as the attitudes of eight GoodGymers who showed up at the morning session at Horsenden Farm. Even without the pre-task cup of coffee, everyone would be buzzing with excitement, ready to begin the day with a dose of exercise in fresh air with earthy, rural notes.

Among the team, there was an impressive number of new starters - but you would not have guessed they were not seasoned GoodGymers! Owen was no stranger to farm work and proved his experience later, suggesting that mattock was the best tool for heavy digging. Jenny was thrilled about all sorts of jobs and was the first one to learn the new skill of wood splitting. Eleanor was equally happy to take up different challenges, including carrying a heavy, damaged picnic bench out of the seating area.

The rain held off for most of the morning. Sevan and Owen kicked off the session by moving poles to the pig enclosure area, where they would be used to secure the fences. The piglets started turning into strong, clever beasts, who began planning their great escape, so prevention was key.

The rest of the team was guided by the volunteer boss, Elsa, to the timber storage spot in the woods. The job was to move firewood down the hill, while not getting eaten by the Gruffalo, to the pizza oven area. After all, there's no pizza without fire. Steph, Eleanor and Jen were wheelbarrowing the logs, Maxime and Kash took turns splitting the wood, and Penny was arranging the split pieces into the storage bays.

When Owen and Sevan rejoined the team, log splitting became a bit of a bottleneck, so part of the crew was sent on a quest to relocate an old picnic bench. Later, another small squad was formed to attempt to remove two tree stumps from a soil heap. That ambitious plan had to be cancelled as the tree trunks - although chopped - were well-rooted and far from rotting.

The first raindrops started to fall when the GoodGymers were finishing organising the last logs and sticks of reasonable sizes into the wood storage bays. It was time to order coffee, pizza and craft beer and sit around chatting about all things GoodGym and beyond.

Whether you enjoyed or missed this Horsenden Farm volunteering day, worry not! The sessions come back every first Saturday of the month. and you can sign up for the very next one here. We hope to see you in July!

Sunny Saturday morning and 2 usual Goodgymers Penny and Steph Ducat were joined by Mira who ran 5km and new member Ashley for his 1st mission. Small group but very efficient on the day. Elsa welcomed everyone and gave us a task. Todays mission was to wheel barrows with some manure down to the car park and spread a thin layer on the pill of building up green vegetation. Once layer done, time to wheelbarrow woodchip from the bottom of the carpark on top of the manure hill. Seems easy, but the hill was a challenge as uneven, steep and with fresh manure. The 4 goodgymers relayed each other with filling the wheelbarrows, running up the hill and spreading the different layers. Our trainers not smelling nice today and have some different colours added to them. We produced a layer cake style hill. After a group photo, we went to see the new pigs that have been introduce at the farm. Obviously that wanted a belly rub and the dogs also kept following us looking for treats.Then it was time to relax and get food ....pizza for most of us.