Sevan and Kash walked from Acton Central (after junior parkrun and coffee with other GoodGymers) to East Acton for a return visit to Mr S, whose garden was under attack by a joint forces of brambles and bindweed. The vines posed a serious trip hazard to the older gentleman, who had recently suffered a fall and an injury to his head. He felt better when two Ealing GoodGymers visited, but was still unstable on his feet, and couldn't tend to his garden in full capacity.

Sevan pulled the pesky bindweed and cut the brambles while Kash strimmed the wet grass and baby blackberries, then raked them together with last year's fallen leaves. The duo spotted a rogue sycamore tree (which they had probably come across during their previous visit a long time ago). Sevan cut it back as much as possible with a pair of secateurs.

The mission finished with filling the tenth black bag with garden waste and moving the sacks to the front of the house. Mr S, who had initially thought that GoodGymers were coming today "just to look at the garden", was delighted to see how much was achieved in 90 minutes.

AJ and Emily arrived at the church and met the food bank volunteers who explained the jobs that needed doing and a bit about the service that is provided. Emily initially got stuck into carrying through the chairs from the church room to the reception area where people would be coming in to have a cup of tea and wait for their selection of food that would be brought to them. We set up lots of small tables with little table clothes and two or three chairs set around them in a cafe style so it would be welcoming and relaxing for people to spend some time there. Then the main job was setting up the back room where the donated food was being delivered to and unpacked. First we had to bring big tables through and set these up, and then we could arrange the food on them. The system was that there would be pickers with a list so that they could come and put together a bag of food and bring it out to the people it is for. AJ has helped in many food banks in the past so had a brilliant suggestion of turning the tins on their side with the labels up so that the pickers can easily see what they are grabbing, plus you could fit more in the crate that way. Another job was cutting some of the bigger loaves of bread that had been donated by Gail's into halves so that they could be distributed to more people. We donned our blue gloves and got to work - Emily cutting and AJ bagging them up individually. After this room was all set up and the empty crates stacked up ready to be taken away, we had finished the task. All the food bank volunteers made us feel very welcome and we left them well prepared.

On a day off work, Kash spent a fantastic Wednesday morning full of activity. After a long swim, she was off to Shepherd's Bush to meet with a familiar face and a familiar garden.

Mr M, whom Kash had visited on multiple occasions, recently had a guest from his home country who helped him trim the grass. Kash knew that for Mr M the grass was never too short, even if the lawn resembled a desert with occasional weeds popping here and there. She convinced the gentleman that the grass was already short (and very dry), and it would make sense to dig out as many weeds as possible rather than mow.

The weather was perfect for a gardening mission, neither too cool nor too hot. Kash enjoyed the birdsong, the announcements from the nearby Circle line station, and a cold drink from Mr M. She removed the alkanet and bindweed from the lawn and paved area, then raked or swept the green waste that fit into two sacks. What a lovely morning it was!

Was an absolute pleasure to work with Mark and the warm friendly team at the Food Bank via St. Simon’s Church in getting food and supplies ready for all.

Shout out to everyone for their donations and to Gail’s bakery for all the bread and pastries to the food bank.

It was easy to see why Ms J is so proud of her garden - a beautiful plot laid out with mature shrubs, roses, fruit trees and a separate vegetable plot. Sadly a recent severe deterioration in her eyesight means she can no longer keep it looking at its best.

Enter a GoodGymer, eager to help as always. Ms J guided me through the setting up of her lawnmower and helped untangle the cabling, which meant that after a short intense bit of work in the summer heat, the lawn was soon looking much tidier.

Onto the main task - tidying up the bushes. Ms J was particularly keen to open up access to a plum tree currently bearing lovely fruit. That necessitated lopping away some very thorny rose bushes and in particular, hacking down some grape vines that had almost completely taken over the area.

The time flew by with horticultural guidance from Ms J and her fascinating reminiscences of her time living in the area. We soon amassed a large pile of severed rose branches and grapevines leaving the area looking a lot tidier.

A plum job indeed.

Clearing up the view was the mission, and swiftly it was done. The tree had grown quite a bit since last cut so my job was to cut the most i could. now not much is left and the garden view can ve enjoyed from the bench! As some time was remaining I tidied up one more bush and was done for the day.