What we lost in distance last night we more than made up for in productivity, positive impact and a bumper balancing session!

Our task for the evening was just across the road at Turnham Green, so we wasted no time heading over to the wild meadow where Jan from Friends of Turnham Green was waiting for us. Many of the tasks we do have an immediate impact - washing the Chiswick mural, uncovering the old pillars at Chiswick House or plastic picking at Kew Bridge, for example. This job was a little different as we were investing effort now so that come next spring, the area will - hopefully - be an amazing display of wild flowers for local people to enjoy.

Dividing up into pairs, we each took a 2 X 2 metre patch of recently mowed grass in the meadow area and began the laborious job of scarifying. For the uninitiated, this means pulling up all the loose grass and weeds to reveal the earth so that seeds can be spread. It is hard work, but ultimately satisfying - the pile of dead grass quickly grew to monster proportions.

Once that part of the task was complete, we moved on to the more delicate process of using a tablespoon to disperse the cornflower and poppy seeds far and wide. Let's keep our fingers crossed for rain to help them bed in, as if they so come up successfully next year it's going to be a glorious riot of colour.

All that was left was to use the GG red roller (very on brand) to complete their journey into the soil. Great work - can't wait to see the results!

Without a run this week we had plenty of time for a longer fitness session, this time focusing on balance for runners. And if last night was anything to go by, should Cirque de Soleil need any last minute stand-ins, GG Hounslow have plenty of candidates! As runners are constantly propelling their weight from one side to the other, good balance is important for stability and efficiency. It's definitely worth including some of the drills from last night into your weekly training.

Next week we have a new (woohoo) task. We're going to be going to a school in Brentford to help transform an overgrown space into a community growing space.

There is also a fun mission marshaling at local centenary celebrations on Saturday and setting up for a community event in a conservation area on Sunday - we definitely need a few more pairs of hands for these ones, so if you're free this weekend and want to do some good why not sign up?!

On 30 June 1908, near the Tunguska River in Siberia, a mysterious shock wave flattened 2,150 square metres of taiga forest. The explosion sparked numerous hypotheses and inspired many works of fiction. 117 years later, a similar event took place in Walpole Park, Ealing. Thistles in an area roughly the size of half a tennis court have been flattened by an unknown force. On Tuesday evening, the GoodGym Ealing Team set off around sunset to investigate the unusual occurrence.

Bryon and Kash headed to the Rangers' secret facility to collect scientific equipment while Steph and Sevan scouted the outer area of Walpole Park, running. Apart from the closed and taped gate, they haven't found anything worth reporting, so they reunited with the rest of the team. In the Rangers' base, the GoodGymers read the research materials about thistles. Easy to pull when young, was the key information. It seemed that the knowledge from seemingly unrelated fields applied to nature conservation. Armed with that advice, the team collected a trolley and a minimum of tools, just in case they would encounter mature thistles.

The site of the unnatural phenomenon, located near the park entrance close to Lammas Park, looked odd, but passers-by didn't seem to pay too much attention to the anomaly. The GoodGymers started collecting samples, and, in the process, they pulled out almost all the felled thistles. It appeared as if they were now covering up the incident. Kash took the first full trolley to dispose of the evidence. On the way through the dark park, she encountered a couple on the bench.

"Is that for the giraffes?", the man asked at the sight of the heap of thistles.
"Yes, and they already want seconds!"
"Ha. Very hungry!"

Steph was the one to bring the giraffes the "seconds", hauling the next trolley to the space where the Rangers kept sensitive evidence. Meanwhile, the team progressed with clearance so far that they have pulled out the thistles that hadn't even been knocked down. The third and final trolley was pulled by Sevan, with the assistance of the rest of the team, in case they weren't able to pull off the giraffe feed excuse anymore and would have to deal with the witnesses of the thistle drop off. Luckily, nothing like that happened, and all the evidence was safely disposed of in the designated area.

"The dream team", Mr J exclaimed at the sight of Sevan and Kash marching into his flat. "And Steph is here?", he added.

Steph was not part of this afternoon's team, but the team had to be dream enough even without the third musketeer. The duo had visited Mr J a year and a half ago to attend to the garden, with a follow-up shortly after. Not only were the GoodGymers memorable, but the garden was too.

Two-step ladder? Check!
Strawberries and mint? Check!
Fork and strimmer? Check!
Mud? Check!

This time, Sevan chose to operate the fork, while Kash decided to go for the strimmer. Following a quick assessment, she decided the strimmer was not the answer to a flowery jungle that materialised around the rose bush. Tough stems, easily pullable large weeds, a shady extension cord, and later heavy rain meant that Kash could only pull that off literally by pulling everything out.

Meanwhile, Sevan, working on the flower bed, lamented the loss of strawberries and mint, but kept digging them out diligently as per Mr J's wishes. They would grow back anyway.

After 90 minutes, the GoodGymers were totally soaked, and the garden looked transformed. Since Mr J ran out of his jumbo bin bags, Sevan and Kash filled nine sturdy black sacks and moved them into the refuse area. As a bonus task, the two ran in the rain back from the Caledonian Road area to Highbury to collect precious Ealing litter pickers they had forgotten in a coffee shop earlier. They made it five minutes before the closing time. Phew!

"Temperatures will be in the mid-teens."

There was a lot of speculation between Kash and Sevan about what they would need litter pickers for in Miss S' front garden and how the things to be picked got there. Would there be a lot of household waste? Maybe rubbish from a nearby festival had blown in? Or something entirely different? For 2 GoodGymers to attend, there must be a mountain of junk to deal with.

Peering over Miss S' front fence ahead of the mission, it looked like someone had beaten Kash and Sevan to the clean up. Still, they knocked on the door and Miss S explained that the litter rained from above, over her upstairs neighbour's balcony and she couldn't collect it due to her bad back.

There actually were a few items of litter to be collected including soft drink bottles and crisp packets. A 5 minute job perhaps. So while Sevan litter picked, Kash did a renegade garden tidy, pulling dead plants and weeds from the flower beds and between the paving.

Thirty minutes later, the garden looked like it had had a mini refresh, which Miss S was very happy with. Ideally, her neighbours would stop dropping their litter into Miss S' garden. If they don't, there'll be more work for GoodGymers to speed clean and give Miss S some pride back in her garden.

Early bird GoodGymers were out in force today, with 9 around the course on the day of Maki's - Chikako's daughter's - last Junior parkrun as her birthday is coming soon. They'll both still be at Acton Juniors in the future, volunteering to help the event that they've enjoyed attending for years.

Most of today's marshals were GoodGymers, with Max, Maria, Steph, Michelle and Sevan helping the children and adults navigate the course and cheering them up and down the hills. Kash experienced the hills herself as the tailwalker, playing a key role in getting a couple of less enthusiastic children to the finish line and Chikako was the VI Guide for the last time (for now).

In the funnel, Ariane dished out the finish tokens and Alan was a late substitute to the timekeeper role. As it turned out, Alan saved the day (in a small way), by recording the finish times of the runners more accurately than the other timekeeper, meaning that all 65 finishers were correctly logged.

Chilly Sunday morning but sunny and 5 Goodgymers were up early and were all on time at Ealing Broadway Station to meet up and have small warm up done by me, Steph Ducat before heading to Acton Junior park run. Was Sevan going to run with poles? It looked like walking/running poles, but in fact he had 2 litter pickers that he was going to use later in the day. Kash, Sevan and Steph Ducat run regularly together and we know our pace. Today we had Maria who came from GG Hounslow to run back from where she walked in the morning. Max joined us too. After the warm up, Steph Ducat led the group and asked if 6:00/km was fine with everyone as we had roughly 3km to run. The fantastic 5 set off through the streets of Ealing to Acton Junior parkrun. The pace was good for everyone and we reached the funnel of the parkrun in no time and we were bang on to the predicted pace Steph Ducat set as goal.(See photo) We all reached the park and all had a good chat during the run. We are all pumped up to cheer the children in the park.

They called him Captain Four Wheels,
Because he had four good legs.
He sailed through seas of wet grass
Swinging his two fearsome blades.

Hired two fishy deckhands,
Called them Black Sev and Red Kash.
One cool as a cucumber,
The other stubborn and brash.

Hey! Out into deep grasses
Four Wheels ordered them to sail,
And took into his cabin
Nine bottles: rum, grog and ale.

The ominous clouds gathered,
And a ruthless storm broke out.
Four Wheels drank in his cabin
Nine bottles: rum, grog and stout.

Black Sev flattened the mainsail,
The bindweed ropes were in shreds.
Nobody heard his shouting
To stay low and mind their heads.

Had Four Wheels known his crew well
Surely that bane wouldn't have struck.
Kash was no lad after all.
Women on board means bad luck.

The Captain hugged his bottles,
At the sight of nearby docks.
Haven't made it to the port,
Four Wheels' ship crashed on the rocks.

When the golden sun was back,
They saw grass sea calm and flat,
Hurt Captain became Three Whells,
The nine bottles were intact.