Our second stop on the tour with Your Voice, Your Town to promote GoodGym Ealing took us to a well-known venue: the William Hobbayne Community Centre, the home of one of the oldest charities (we learned it is in the top 10!) in the UK. We met June and many other familiar faces from the Hobbayne Charity, Hanwell Hootie and Hanwell Carnival.

Our table was placed in the room adjoining the main hall, unfortunately not in the main hall itself, but June made sure we were at the stall that would be visible from the main hall, and not around the corner. Kash continued the makeshift decorations tradition and created a More fun this way sign to attach in front of the entrance to the small room where we were stationed. After all, we had been told we were colourful and lively, so our job was to lure more visitors that way.

Since the Wednesday night event in Ealing Broadway, we have boosted our cardboard box displays with previously loose photos and upgraded the rules of our darts game to enable more prizes to be won and more thought-provoking questions answered.

As it was a weekend day, we had hoped for more residents to show up and learn about GoodGym's work. Instead, it was more of an opportunity to meet the representatives of other charities and community organisations - potential task owners?

The event ended with an unexpected, very short but energetic dance party which brought smiles to people's faces and got the bodies moving. Let's see if the Acton gig will have an equally wild element to it!

After their debut as funnel managers at Pitshanger junior parkrun, Sevan and Kash, rather than running back home, hung out at the cafe in Pitshanger Park, as they had other fish to fry in the park. But the fish had to be first fished out from the River Brent!

The GoodGymers met in front of the Pitshanger Bowls Pavilion with Ben - the founder of Clean Up River Brent, Cathy - the leader of LAGER Can, Ranger Jamie and volunteers eager to have a dip in Brent and collect some souvenirs from the Sunday out in the river: the rubbish!

They also met Richard, a volunteer gardener from Walpole Park, who recognised the GoodGymers as the helpers doing the jobs his small group of volunteers wouldn't be able to cover: filling the raised bed and planting and mulching ahead of filming the Antiques Roadshow. Richard was extremely grateful for all the GoodGymers who made impossible jobs possible and reminded Sevan and Kash that the BBC filming takes place today!

Back to Pitshanger Park! After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to get into the river in Pitshanger this year, all volunteers jumped into waders. Ben gave everyone the usual health & safety briefing, mentioning the treacherous depths, current, bacteria and...

"And remember to watch out for that hogweed!" - a passerby.
"Exactly! It is coming..." - Ben.

After viewing some pictures of giant hogweed, the squad of rubbery mermaids and tritons armed with wading poles marched through the park and found a place to descend into the water. This time, it was Jamie's turn to talk about safety rules after entering the river.

"Cathy, how deep are we allowed to go? Was it waist level?"
"Mid-thigh level. Some of us have holes in their bums!"

In case you wondered what kind of people don't have that anatomical feature, you need to know that Cathy's waders had a puncture, well, below the waist level.

The volunteers got into the water in pairs. The GoodGym explorers decided to go in the opposite direction than the mainstream litter pickers and discovered land on the other bank of the river with jungles of hogweed, and litter islands made primarily of carrier bags tangled around tree roots.

Sevan was a bit underwhelmed by the size of the objects he was finding in the water, hoping for a bigger catch, but agreed with Kash that maybe it was a sign that CURB's efforts to keep the river clean were paying off. Later, they found out that the other volunteers excavated a mattress buried in the riverbed.

The GoodGymers could stay only 90 minutes on the task but collected three bags of aquatic litter before running off to prepare for their next gig, with a stop in Walpole Park to check out whether Antiques Roadshow was really there as Richard said.

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Appendix A - Creative process behind report writing

Kash: "I need a pun. And I want something related to that bum quote. And water. Like 'watering bum-hole'. Or, you know there is a phrase: 'water below the bridge'..."
Sevan: "Water under the bridge?"
Kash: "Yeah, that one! 'Water under the bum'!"
Sevan: "There was an MTV show in the nineties called 'Beavis and Butt-Head'. They had this phrase: 'Cornholio'! Maybe 'Bumholio!'? But I don't think it will be accepted."
Kash: "Yes, I think bums are only accepted in the body. Hahaha! Report body, I mean! My quote is almost as good as Cathy's original!"
Sevan: "Maybe we should record this whole conversation in the appendix?"

Sevan arrived at this morning at Pitshanger Junior parkrun expecting to be a marshal and Kash, having forgotten to sign up didn't know what role would be in store for her. It turned out that they were both assigned to be funnel managers, a role that neither of them had done before. Apparently last week the funnel was a problem

"It was chaos" - marshal

"Last time the funnel manager set it up then went to run with her daughter" - frequent run director

Oh well, said Kash and Sevan. They'd roll with it. Kash was stationed at the entrance to the funnel to siphon adults away and Sevan was at the finish line to make sure that everyone stayed in finish order and took the left turn to pick up a finish token.

"You're doing a much better job than last week" - frequent run director

"You mean I'm doing better than no one? Just kidding" - Sevan

Kash had the harder job, with people milling around the funnel entrance and some adults and children being confused by being asked to split up. Sevan on the other hand only had to gently cajole to get children running all the way to the finish line and not stop dead on the line.

In total, 96 runners were shepherded through the funnel. The same number as last time, but with 3 funnel managers in action this week, everything worked like a well oiled machine.

Painting is not new for the Ealing GoodGymers who showed up at the West Ealing library. Last year, we painted the Open Ealing Art centre on a hot summer. This time the weather was pleasant, and the wall is not that tall.

I arrived a few minutes before the task and Mandie, who is the founding member of Open Ealing, had already put all the painting materials needed for today's task. She gave me a quick walk-through of what needed to be done and left us in the safe hands of West Ealing library manager Nashab.

Clare arrived soon after for her first GoodGym task and her first visit to West Ealing Library

who is not new to GoodGym as she was a task owner from the Northfield Allotments.

Sevan and Kash came running and we slowly started getting into the task. Sevan and I didn't know the secret behind the plastic apron and were wearing it like a bib, till Kash showed us how to properly open and wear it.

After some vigorous shaking, Sevan poured the creamy paint onto the trays and Clare didn't wait a single minute and went straight to the task.

In the meantime, Mandie came back with refreshments (A box of Millionaire shortbread and flap jacks and a few bottles of water). We also had tea/coffee options available as there was a kitchen inside.

Sevan took the long rollers and focussed on the pillars. Kash picked the wall on the right and I chose the centre. Clare's expertise suggested she paint the edges first and was doing a pristine job.

Claire joined us then after completing her 99th park run in Osterley and assisted Clare in covering the wall on the left side.

Kash was doing more than painting. Her strokes looked more like graffiti than a regular paint job as she was using an unwashed dried-up painting roll. So she switched to a new painting roll and could see the difference and smoothness.

I on the other hand can't stop imagining butter, custard cream, and everything yellow after seeing the creaminess of the paint. So I controlled my temptations from licking the paint and letting the brush do the job.

Soon we covered the major areas and switched to painting the edges. We were sitting, crouching, climbing, and rolling on the floors to get the edges painted.

With 15 minutes left, Claire switched from painting to cleaning. She started removing the paint from the frames and corners using sugar soap. We didn't have to spend much time washing up the rolls like we did last time as Nashab said he would take care of it.

We were amazed after seeing how perfect Clare has painted her side of the wall

We managed to cover 25% of the area and we might come back to finish the rest sometime next time month. Keep your eyes peeled for an announcement soon.

It has been a quarter of a century (or longer) since Ms A's garden had flowers in it. Ms A successfully planted herbs before, but the thought of more vibrant species always seemed like a distant dream and too much work. Today's arrival of two GoodGymer meant that it was time the dreams were about to come true.

Sevan and Kash spent some time on truly Galilean activity, looking around to observe the movements of celestial bodies. It was cloudy, so they didn't get any good evidence of how the Sun would travel across the sky, casting light on the flowerbeds. Where should they place geranium, hydrangeas and other small plants to be sure the flowers would get enough sunlight? Ms A gave them an artistic licence in garden design, so they decided to plant pots based on where they thought was North, South, West and East.

Kash didn't want to commit too early to putting anything in the earth, so she decided to prepare the soil in the whole flowerbed with a fork and a spade. And what a soil it was! Rough and dry as a bone!

While Kash dug and removed weeds and roots, Sevan did something more practical and transferred the herbs Ms A had bought from plastic pots into permanent ones. Coriander, parsley, mint and thyme found their new homes in ceramic heaven filled with fresh, nutritious soil. And Kash was still turning the soil in the flowerbeds.

You can glance, you can plant
Having the thyme of your life, ooh
See that girl, watch that scene
Dig in the Digging Queen

When Sevan finished the job with the herbs, he helped Kash with planting, trying his best to excavate the unforgiving earth in the flowerbeds with a small trowel. Kash chose to hack the soil with a baby mattock she found. After planting all the flowers, Sevan watered the thirsty soil, and Kash swept the mess from the paving she had made with her brutal digging technique. Whether the plants will survive in the desert-like conditions, only time will tell!

Kash and Sevan were told that Mrs S had a big garden and oh boy, was it big. They were asked to focus on that back, weeding the patio area and trimming anything growing through the fence from the playing fields behind. As they got going Mrs S' neighbour popped his head over the fence before turning up some reggae tunes in their garden that enveloped all of their neighbours' homes.

"We saw you running as we were driving home. You two are machines! They're marathon runners" - Mrs S' neighbour

While Kash and Sevan aren't quite marathon runners, they are plenty competent weeders having had years of mission hardening and testing. They got to work, pulling what they could from between the slabs, while anything that was encased in concrete, they scrubbed and scraped to clean up the patio.

Sevan moved on to chopping the ivy growing through the back fence while Kash worked on clearing the weeds from the long path leading up to the patio. In 90 minutes they were done, leaving the family very pleased with the result.