It was not brambles, ivy or litter that were the main nuisance at Grove Farm today. Friends of Grove Farm had another problem to fix: a leaking pond! A pool of water at the bottom of the park's hill was surrounded by clay borders and one of the walls was reinforced with a fallen willow. Unfortunately, the dead tree fortified by clay was not doing its job to keep the water in. We don't know if the Paradise Fields beaver engineers were consulted about building a dam, but the GoodGym Ealing plumbing team got there first!

Three Friends of Grove Farm: Anna, Mike and Olena were joined on Saturday by a strong team of six GoodGymers. The job was to excavate some clay, and then fill the gaps that were causing the leak. We had an archaeologist and an engineer (a network engineer to be specific) on the team, which boosted our confidence about digging and constructing things. One team: Sevan, Simon, Mehmet and Mike were sent to mine for clay at the other part of the park, while the rest stayed at the pond. Gaby and Kash were digging the clay locally, eroding the top of existing walls that did not have to be as high, and Eliz, Anna and Olena did most of the construction work, patching the leaky pond barrier.

To make sure that the clay is properly compacted, our builders were performing a flagship GoodGym exercise - muddy mountain climbers (see how Eliz did it!). That routine was not only a perfect workout for the legs and core but also for nature. Which other gym has that on their offer?

The last ten minutes of the task was spent on cleaning the tools, followed by a short excursion to the wood anemone location. Cutting back all the brambles in that area in the winter paid off - we were dazzled by a wonderful carpet of white flowers against the greenery of the woodlands!

Wood anemones will be still flowering in the next two weeks, so if you are keen to see their beauty, join Friends of Grove Farm for creating habitats for slow worms next week or the conservation day in April.

Five GoodGymers who volunteered at Acton junior parkrun in the morning, couldn't have enough fresh air on a sunny Sunday and decided on another session in South Ealing. After their usual post-parkrun coffee break, Michelle cycled 3.5 km to the next destination while Harvey, Steph Ducat, Sevan and Kash raced her on foot. The runners' route took them through South Ealing Cemetery, which had a surprising number of roundabouts! At one of the roundabouts, the team met Gaby and Simon - the latter on his official first session - although he had been familiar with GoodGym for a while! Everyone, including Beata, who walked to the task, eventually made it to the cemetery chapel and met Paul from the Ealing Parks Foundation.

Today's job was a continuation of last month's task to spread the Christmas joy over the cemetery. In other words, we were laying (very coarse) woodchip made of last year's Christmas trees over the cemetery's side paths. Our impressive team of eight split between three paths, and our smallest unit joined two local volunteers, David and Keith, with whom we exchanged experiences about interesting community projects in Ealing we had worked on. We joked about finding minced Christmas lights among the woodchip piles. In fact, one of us discovered a Christmas decoration piece resembling a diamond!

Speaking of precious goods, today wheelbarrows were worth a million as we had only two of them to share. One of our smaller teams used a tonne bag for woodchip transport instead - those GoodGymers had the best full-body workouts! Fantastic teamwork (despite Harvey's two right gloves) allowed us to complete all three paths before noon when we decided to call it a day. The retired Christmas trees could now rest in pieces at the necropolis.

The best reward for our volunteering efforts was spending the morning outdoors, in the sun, surrounded by the tranquil atmosphere of early spring. The blossoms on the trees made the South Ealing Cemetery resemble a magical park.

"Maybe that's weird, but I like cemeteries. I am not scared of them. They are so quiet and peaceful." - said Gaby.

Gaby was not the only one appreciating the unique serenity of graveyards. The Ealing Parks Foundation's project, which we supported today, aims for South Ealing Cemetery to retain its charm and dignity while transforming it into a welcoming green space for everyone to relax. If you are local to the area and are looking for a quiet space to go for a walk and clear your mind, visit the cemetery and be delighted by its calming atmosphere!

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!

The drizzly Saturday morning in February brought GoodGymers their first session of the year with HANGOT - a wonderful organisation whose members plant fruit trees in public green spaces to encourage biodiversity and foraging for food. The volunteers walked through a bit muddy towpath to one of the farther orchards - the Blackberry Corner hidden on the other side of Grand Union Canal. Hint: you can reach it if you cross the canal using Hanwell Lock No 92. On the way there, a cyclist squinted at us, trying to decipher (from a sign we carried) what we were protesting against. Disappointingly, the sign that Clive later stuck to the ground, was only announcing that the orchard trail volunteers were working in the area - no demonstrations planned.

Well, a different type of demonstration happened at the Blackberry Corner. The task owner, Mirjam, and another volunteer, Lydia, both gave the GoodGymers a great explanation of how to do today's task: pruning the trees. Gaby, Simon, Maria, Liuba, Harvey and Kash learned the following rules:

• Cut out the shoots growing inwards
• Cut out the watershoots that are growing straight up
• Cut out the shoots that will rub onto other branches when they grow
• Always spray the tools with Dettol solution between pruning different trees to avoid infections (it's just like between operating different patients)
• Cut the shoots at an angle so that the rainwater does not collect in a horizontal tree wound
• For larger tree wounds (when you need to cut out a thicker branch), rub some soil onto them - you don't need any expensive products to protect the wounded area
• Don't prune the trees in the summer when the trees will produce lots of sap and will bleed too much

According to Mirjam, there were no restrictions on trimming the trees in the winter.

If someone tells you you cannot prune when it's freezing cold - you can. Well, maybe not when it's minus fifteen degrees because you'll freeze off your fingers. That's what Monty Don says, and I trust him.

Lydia and Mirjam, while agreeing on the theory had slightly different approaches to pruning: the former was more careful in choosing which shoots to trim, the latter more bold. The GoodGymers from the school of Lydia appeared more cautious about their choices.

While all the GoodGymers chose the pruning task, Clive's team was installing extra protection around the trees to defend them from rabbits. By the end of the winter, there is no food around and the furry residents of the meadow are desperate enough to go for the bark. HANGOT needed to make sure that rabbits would have to choose the other trees than the orchard ones.

Later in the year, with longer days and more growth in the spring, we will hold more sessions with HANGOT - both on Saturdays and evenings on weekdays - so watch this space for more listings!