At GoodGym Hounslow we're very much in touch with our wild side! Last week we had a brush with a hedgehog, and this week our star turn was a very friendly cat who was keen to become our latest member...

We turned up to Harvard Hill to help the Friends organisation there with several gardening jobs. We were greeted by Marie-Claire who had invested in some shiny new tools. We were given instructions on the tasks to be done - mostly weeding and some work on the raised beds. Unfortunately it was about then that the cat made an appearance and we got somewhat distracted!

After a bit of kitten around, we got down to some serious work. While the weeding was being done, and the fox poo mostly avoided, Steph and Michelle shifted the mulch to the raised beds. In a lovely full circle mulch moment, we discovered that the nutrient-dense bags of it we were spreading were actually from Cultivate, a regularly task for us. They were full of the very same mulch we has ourselves packed up over the past two years at Acton School! It was very satisfying to put the end product to good use.

By now we were feline pretty fine with all the work we had got done, so it was time for a fitness session. Meow you're talking! It was all about the glutes last night, and we had several butt-tastic exercises designed to fire up this major muscle group. There was plenty of singing to go along with each move, with the themes from Rocky and Flashdance featuring at full volume.

Don't fur-get to sign up for next week's run to help out at Strand on the green - who knows what our next animal sighting will be!

ps apologies no photos as yet as the website is not letting me upload them - please chack back later!

As Storm Amy approached Ealing, a whirlwind of West London GoodGymers landed at Horsenden Farm. A strong team of seventeen hasn't been seen in Ealing for a long time. It took the joint forces of Ealing, Hounslow and Richmond to build a do-good brigade so large that it surprised even the task owner, Elsa, who scrambled to find more tasks for them.

We welcomed two new joiners, Bernadette and Tom, who chose to kick off their GoodGym adventure dangerously close to the Gruffalo Trail at Horsenden Hill. With such an impressive team, the chances of being eaten by a Gruffalo were close to zero. At the same time, the odds of having fun with good company while getting active in nature before eating carb-heavy, cheesy goodness from a local bakery were very high!

Our regulars from the Hounslow group runs had a chance to welcome back the unstoppable Lucy after the break she had to take in the last couple of weeks. Great to see you again, Lucy!

Two of the tasks given by Elsa had a lot to do with the mysterious disappearance of Horsenden pigs. The first assignment, taken by Steph Ducat, Iram, Kymm and Gus, was to transfer hay from the broken-down hay bales to the former pig quarters and spread it on the ground. I chose to believe it was to secure the traces of a pignapping crime until the arrival of the forensics team. Steph described the effort as hay-way to hell as the gusts of wind kept blowing the hay out of the wheelbarrows. Kymm reported there were as many techniques to spread the hay as GoodGymers: from gleeful tossing, through grumpy kicking to methodical arranging.

Sevan and Bernadette had a task of clearing weeds, mostly nettles, near the Horsenden Loaf pizza oven. Sevan shared that they were setting the stage for the hog roast the following day. That shed some light on the disappearance of the pigs - they must have escaped when they heard about the whole hog roast enterprise!

The largest squad undertook a mammoth job of clearing brambles to expand a meadow where the farm cows could graze to help establish a grassland with plenty of wildlife on the slope of Horsenden Hill. Gaby, Ariane, Tom, Mairaj, Maxime, Afshin, Thaiza, Lucy and Kash were chopping, lopping or slashing the blackberry invaders while Anita and Ash raked away the cuttings.

The cherry on a cake was that all the activity was observed through the lens of photographer Laura, who did a great job of not interrupting our tasks while capturing the spirit of GoodGym and the beauty of Horsenden Hill. We are hoping our part-time modelling gig today will help spread the word about GoodGym in the coming months. It will probably also disclose our soft spot for Horsenden pizza!

Inspired by today's task? Join the Horsenden session next month! Sign up now!

Racing celebrations, a huge task under the light of a beautiful moon, and a star turn from a rarely spotted inhabitant of Chiswick House made for a great Wednesday night at GoodGym Hounslow!

Thanks to Michelle for leading the warm up, before we kicked off the evening with a short run to our regular task. We were fresh off the back of some great races at the weekend - a huge well done to Chris, Tish, Matt, Eloise and Steph for a fantastic run at the Vitality 10km, and to Alan and Florian for smashing the Ealing Half!

We arrived at a secret door to meet Chiswick House gardener Chris, who took us to a new spot or the group - the bee hives. The bees produce honey which is sold in the shop to raise money for the charity, and they want to make the area more accessible for school kids. Enter GoodGym!

The aim of the game was to remove all the undergrowth and anything else that was getting in the way. Everything had to go to create a new pathway, and with the green flag from Chris to adopt a scorched earth policy, we got to work!

We pulled, lopped and cleared, slowly but surely revealing a large area of land. Half way through the task, our mystery guest made an appearance - well done to Ariane for safely uncovering and rehoming a gorgeous hedgehog! He was in very safe hands, and was soon happily snuffling his way back to the woods.

By the end the task the area was truly transformed, great work everybody. We ran and walked back to base, where there was the option of a static core workout using the benches by the rockery. We worked our obliques, lower back and abs with a series of (slightly damp) exercises.

Next week we're off to Harvard Hill for some more gardening - please bring headtorches if you have them as this is a dark task.

Yesterday was National Fitness Day, and at GoodGym Hounslow we celebrated in the best way possible - with a brand new task that took a lot of hard work, a run along the river, and a workout that involved endurance, power, strength and stability challenges!

We started off with a warm up at the Town Hall before heading to Green Dragon school in Brentford. The volunteers there have cleared away a space that hasn't been used for 15 years to create a new growing area for the kids.

We soon arrived and were wowed by how huge the school was and how many cool things they had there - an outside kitchen, play areas and not to mention the gang of four foxes watching us work with interest!

The main job was to tackle the hefty brambles which needed to be taken away by the root. Easier said than done! The brambles were so old that they were seriously deep in the ground - which meant a lot of GG elbow grease.

Meanwhile Ariane was grappling with a very dead but very invasive plant. Armed with secateurs and sheer grit, she took it to task, eventually clearing the area completely.

Amazing work everybody. All that was left to do was a fitness challenge that covered flamingos for stability, half burpees for power, press ups for strength and step ups for endurance. Seeing how many we could complete in one minute was a tough ask, but everybody smashed it.

Next week we're back to Chiswick House - see you there!

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?!