Horsenden Farm is like a neutron star of West London - its gravity pulls in the GoodGymers from areas near Ealing and they just cannot escape its allure. This Saturday the farm stole three people from GoodGym Hounslow: Gus, already a Horsenden regular, and two quite new adventurers: Pezhman and Maxime.

Maria from GoodGym Ealing was another novice to the most popular Saturday session in the area. Gaby and Simon were well acquainted with the farm, meadows and woodlands of Horsenden Hill, but new to the volunteering days. Steph Ducat, Sevan and Kash on the other hand, have seen all the animals, tried all the pizza flavours and kept the farm in motion almost every month, moving all sorts of things that needed moving: from unglamorous soil and manure to heavy objects like safes and logs.

Today's task was on the heavy-duty side. Nick, being in charge of volunteers while Elsa was away, thought GoodGymers might be perfectly suited to remove wood and fence panels from the area that was going to become an enclosure for fell ponies - the newest addition to the farm!

"When the ponies arrive, they will be helping us move the logs from the woods." - Nick
"What the GoodGymers will be doing then?" - Kash
"You will ride the ponies!"

The fence parts were to be stacked against one of the sheds (the one that still had some space behind it). There was one problem: the panels were very big and very heavy, also awkward to carry with hardly any grip. Pezhman came up with an idea to use ropes, which was trialled. Eventually, the most utilised tools were muscles and brains. Once all the panels were miraculously fitted around the shed, leaned against three walls, the heaviest log made its way out of the future pony enclosure on a wheelbarrow.

The GoodGymers completed the challenging task with 30 minutes spare (before the pizza oven started!). No one felt like sitting down and relaxing - that part happens at noon! Nick offered our team a bonus task: wheelbarrowing woodchip from the car park and dropping it alongside the greenhouse. That kept us busy until the pizza gods summoned their priest to fire up the oven and feed the hardworking folk.

That is the way of Horsenden, the ritual that happened regularly in the past and will happen again in the future. Make sure you are a part of this tasty and rewarding future and sign up for the April session now!

Adam, Chris, Rosie and Pezhman turned out on a slightly warmer Saturday morning, for our first visit to the Greenwood Centre in Hampton Hill this year. The centre hosts a number of activities including learning to paint, yoga and also the Hampton and Hampton Hill Volunteer care group. Before starting, we welcomed Pezhman who was volunteering for his first Richmond Good Gym mission, having done his first ever good gym task in Hounslow earlier this month. From there, we didn’t moss around and were instructed to remove the weeds and mos from the driveway way. With the assistance of trowels, brushes and forks. Overall we kept calm and Moss-ed on!