Walpole Park has been a frequent GoodGymming spot throughout December and January due to its seemingly endless supply of matter that needs shifting from place A to place B! The February session was no different, with an objective to mulch the newly planted tree whips along the park’s easternmost path.

Five Ealing GoodGymers, who met at the Tuesday group run, enjoyed the first evening of the year, which felt as if spring was just around the corner. No freezing fingers, no wind, no rain - well, if you don’t count the puddles remaining after the filming in Walpole Park earlier in the day. The film shoot involved pipes hung from the trees along the main alley to make fake rain, quite ironically, on the second rainless day of 2026 in London.

Chris, Freya, Sevan, Steph and Kash used their superhuman senses (and head torches) to locate the whips planted around an imposing plane tree in the dark. The stems were thinner than a little finger and easy to miss. The team had to be extra careful when wheelbarrowing mulch from a nearby woodchip pile to the end of the path, and not stomp on the whips. Survival of the fittest is not GoodGym’s motto after all. Buckets came in handy when carrying woodchip to the furthest areas to mulch.

The park was quiet and peaceful, apart from lively chats about travels and shrieks of foxes having fun in the bushes. The team covered the section of planted whips leading to the plane tree and around it. A few other nearby planted areas remained woodchip-free, but we’re keen to give it another try next week!

On Sunday afternoon, Sevan and Kash ran 8 km from Ealing to a familiar location in Hounslow. In the morning, they had packed rain jackets, although sunglasses would have been more useful, as the sun was generous enough to show its face in the second part of the day.

The GoodGymers were visiting Miss S, for whom they had battled brambles at least twice in the past. Sadly, they wouldn’t see the lady this time, as she had been taken to the hospital. The mission was still going ahead, as Miss S’s friend had left the garden gate unlocked and provided instructions on how to find the tools.

When Sevan and Kash entered the backyard and first located the outdoor loo (critical to finding the tool store), another friend of Miss S opened the door of the beneficiary's house. The look on her face was saying: “Why on earth are you breaking into a privy?” The loo-glars explained the situation and found out that this friend of Miss S had only just arrived back home and had no clue about the arrangements with GoodGym. Sevan and Kash must have looked trustworthy, as they quickly gained the friend’s trust and access to the garden. Not only that - the friend offered them access to the house, but they politely refused, as they had everything they needed in the garden.

The two knew the drill, so they spent the next 90 minutes chopping brambles, lopping overgrown tree branches, and squeezing everything into the poor garden waste bin. Kash had no mercy for the trimmings and eventually jumped into the bin to compress everything - and that method, once again, has proved super effective.

After the mission, the garden looked much more under control. Hopefully, that was one less thing off Miss S’s plate while she was recovering in the hospital. The GoodGymers were pleased that it was still bright and dry outside when they finished the task. So pleased indeed that Kash decided to walk 6 km back home and make the most of the sunlight. She told the story of the loo heist to her voice recorder while walking - what you’ve just read is its transcript.

Today's Care4Calais session saw the 2-2 theme from the earlier Pitshanger Junior parkrun continue, with the team's skirts staying on through this session too. There was no other fancy dress on display as the start of the task was all business.

Boxes of school uniforms had arrived at C4C's West London base and the first task was to sort through them, getting rid of anything that was damaged or poor quality. Next, the clothes were organised by size. Instead of the child's age, which GoodGymers had used for previous school uniform tasks, the key today was the waist size as most donations were trousers. Some pairs were brand new, still with tags on and others had been to many lessons. Where helpful ex-owners had removed the size labels, as usual, the team needed to lay out the trousers to guess the waist size.

With the school uniforms bagged up, it was onto more colourful, less... grey clothing. First up were men's clothing donations where there were a lot of brands. Someone was clearly upgrading last season's Gucci/Lacoste/Givenchy for something new. Working through the women's clothes donations was fairly straight forward apart from some interesting sizing by the brands. A "medium" top that could fit 2 GoodGymers in it for example, well, that seemed like more of an (X)XL.

The final sizing issue that the team encountered was the size of the boxes in the storage room. Some were overflowing before the new donations even arrived. No matter how much Angela and Kash tried to squeeze in more jumpers or t-shirts, they wouldn't go. Admitting defeat, task owner Tamzin had to find the team some new overflow storage.

Today's session was all sorting and no pack creation because the ticket printer was on the blink, meaning that the tickets for new requests couldn't be created. Sevan had a look as the task wrapped up, pressed some buttons and like magic, the printer spat out a sheet of requests, ready for the afternoon's volunteering group to work through.