Ah, the dark Walpole Park in winter, a fleet of wheelbarrows, and the usual suspects with head torches, shovels, spades and rakes. Sounds familiar? Another trip to the Walled Garden, a path surface that needed refreshing and the scent of... woodchip? Or maybe something else?

Tonight's task was the second part of the 2025 edition of replacing woodchip on the Walled Garden path, so we've been doing a fair amount of digging, wheelbarrow runs, shovelling, and raking. Certainly not weeding, which in turn was the speciality of other visitors to the park garden - a different kind of weeding.

When walking with wheelbarrows past Rickyard, each time we heard party tunes. Did the Christmas miracle come early, transforming Walpole Park into a nightclub? Everyone seemed to be having fun - and so did we! With a small, but powerful team of four: Harvey, Steph, Sevan and Kash, we've finished off the job in no time! Now we're getting ready for the start of 2026, kicking off the group runs with another session at Walpole Park - sign up now!

Rain did not stop play for a trio of Ealing GoodGymers, who showed up at Ealing Broadway on the first Tuesday evening of December for a very short run to Walpole Park and a classic winter task: woodchipping.

Steph Ducat, Sevan and Kash made their way to the Walled Garden, where they excavated the old woodchip covering one of the paths between veg beds. They used the material as mulch and spread it on a large flower bed nearby. Clever! It wasn't their idea, to be fair, but the ranger's orders.

A couple of shovelling trips with a trolley and wheelbarrows to the other end of the park brought enough fresh woodchip to fill the whole path - that's quite a result for only three GoodGymers! In 2023, it took almost 4 times as many people to do that! What has changed? Well, primarily the location of the woodchip!

What has not changed was the wisdom of the philosopher:

Be woodchip, my friend. Empty your barrow. Be formless, shapeless, like woodchip. You put woodchip on a path, it becomes the path. You put woodchip into a barrow, it becomes the barrow. You put it in compost, it becomes the compost. Now, woodchip can nourish, or it can kill (weeds). Be wood chip, my friend.

We will be back soon to Walpole Park for more woodchip wisdom and making sure we finished the other path!

How many GoodGymers do you need to fill two tonne bags with compost, move them, and stack them? Well, depends on how many you’ve got! Even as a small team, the GoodGymers can work magic. Ash, Harvey, Sevan, Steph, and Kash have proven that’s true on a cool Tuesday night, when they ran to Walpole Park to help the ranger and volunteer gardeners move the leftover compost from the community giveaway into the Walled Garden.

After picking up the tools and thoroughly checking that there was no one under the tarp covering the compost pile (it looked very convincing as a homeless person's refuge), the team stuck their shovels into the compost and started loading tonne bags, wheelbarrows, and a trolley. It took three trips to the Walled Garden to deliver nearly two tonnes of compost in bags and top up a raised bed, while carefully avoiding burying the strawberries in it. The team avoided the temptation to split up and do the job even quicker - it’s always better to stick together, as it's safer and more fun!

After a successful session, the GoodGymers locked up the bagged compost, the tools, and even the park, as it was past the time it should be closed for the night. Next week, we give dark parks a break and venture to Acton for a leafletting session to promote free health and fitness activities for women hosted at St Mary’s Church. Sign up now!

For GoodGym Ealing's second compost task of they week, they became purveyors of fine compost, free to a good home, allotment or dog peeing spot. Anyone could turn up with a container and take away as much as they'd like. Opening the tool storage, the 6 GoodGymers present were surprised to find 2 barrows prefilled with compost as well as the shovels and wheelbarrows essential for the task.

The barrows turned into another job for the team as Steph, Max and Jo went to fill the second bay in the Walled Garden, continuing the work from Tuesday's group run. Today was Jo's first session with GoodGym and she did an amazing job, shovelling compost like a pro with the others 💪 🥳 👏!

Back at the giant compost heap, the team again tried to guess that was in the compost based on it's pungent smell. Definitely not food waste according to Kymm and probably something leafy. Familiar faces appeared as Claire and Madhan took away a couple of wheelbarrows which the team filled up for them. Let's see what they grow with it at their Northfield allotments plots. Others came too with bin bags, shopping trolleys and one woman had come all the way from West Acton with a folding cart (and a car).

"I'd like some black gold please" - Woman with cart
"Well, we have around 2 tons of it. How much would you like?" - Sevan
"Oh, I'll take a ton" - Woman with cart

She had 10 bins bags, which didn't quite come to a metric ton. Still, she was really grateful for what she was able to wheel away to use in her garden. The team wrapped up at 12:30 having done a good shovelling shift, leaving the remaining heap to gardeners who'd brought their own spades and excited dogs, who'd find a new favourite digging spot.

As the dark Ealing skies rumbled with Diwali fireworks, three runners with head torches did a loop around Walpole Park and ran into the dead-end at the back of Rickyard Café, inadvertently scaring away a group of youths socialising on the benches. While Sevan stood on guard, Steph and Kash took wheelbarrows and shovels from the park tool store, then all three ventured into the Walled Garden to clear a compost bin they were going to fill. Tall weeds had grown in the space where the woodchip had run out, but removing them was merely a warm-up for seasoned GoodGymers.

The main task for the night was transporting compost, which had been delivered only a few hours earlier, to the empty bin. The pile was destined to be shared for free with local allotments over the weekend (GoodGym is supporting that initiative too!), but the Walled Garden was also going to receive its share. Ensuring the latter was tonight's job.

The trio followed their noses to find the smelly heap without fail. Sevan scented subtle notes of prunes, while for Steph the aroma resembled that of brewery or distillery waste. The team dipped their shovels into the compost heap. The sky thundered with fireworks, but the thick smoke on the ground came from the disturbed fertiliser.

The wheelbarrowed black gold made its way to the compost bin in various styles. Our favourite was Steph's pirate-inspired walking the plank. With each trip from the pile to the bin, the GoodGymers continued to progress to new levels, stacking the front bin planks to prevent compost spillage. The difficulty of the soil drop raised, but teamwork was an easy remedy for that.

When the compost bin was filled and levelled, the fireworks shot into the sky to announce that achievement and didn't stop booming when Steph, Sevan and Kash were leaving the park. In fact, that pyrotechnic fever keeps going while I write this report late in the night.

I will leave you now with this sniffhanger and hope you will join us for the compost giveaway day this Sunday, or our next Tuesday group run with This Girl Can to lift the curfew for exercising women after the clocks go back.

For those who don't believe in Autumn starting on the 1st of September, last night there was no escape from the equinox marking the start of the darker half of the year. Headtorch season was on. After a 2km run in Walpole Park, four Ealing GoodGymers, who were about to start their task, concluded it was already time for the work lights.

The only tool Harvey, Steph, Sevan and Kash needed for tonight's job was a pair of thick, long gloves. Was falconry a new GoodGym discipline? The quartet hoped to get an Ealing Eagle landing on their gloves - and, ideally, in their team - yet, not many runners ventured to the park nighttime. What's more eccentric than running in an unlit park after dark? Pulling thistles in an unlit park after dark! The GoodGymers ticked off both oddities in a single night, and removed three trolleys of invasive plants in an hour - the result equally good as last week!

Next week we're going to give the thistles a break and take down the signs after the best half marathon that is happening this week - sign up now!