The first group run after the clocks went forward last weekend was all in bright daylight. What a difference it made! Steph Ducat, Sevan and Kash ran from Ealing Broadway to Acton to meet Mary and Lone from Ealing Repair Cafe in a new workshop location - the Hall of St Mary's Church.

Chris did not join the runners today as he was doing some proper lifting! He made his way to the task by doing the exercise called farmer's walk - or shall we say a donor's walk? Chris showed up with a ton of bags of used clothes that were ready to be reborn as something else! Well done Chris! Ealing Repair Cafe is all about reusing, repairing or recycling old fabrics.

Mary and Lone did a triage on the spot:

• Clothes in good condition to be donated to the refugees
• Old Liverpool and England football t-shirts to be transformed into the famous drawstring bags
• Trainers - to be donated somewhere else (two GoodGymers declared to run back with them and send the shoes to JogOn)
• Jeans to be upcycled into tote bags
• Socks, shorts and particularly ripped clothes to be cut into scraps to make stuffing for draught excluders

"Those are proper jeans, we can make bags out of them! Traid usually give us those skinny jeans, and they are good mostly for draught excluders" - Mary

Ealing Repair Cafe recently donated a couple of draught excluders to St Mary's Church in Acton, which served well to secure the drafty north church door. Who knows, maybe that has also secured us a venue for today's workshop!

Chris spent the rest of the session cutting his old apparel into shreds. He did not expect that turn of events when contributing his old stuff but was extremely grateful that Ealing Repair Cafe accepted his donation. That made Chris immediately stuck into the task.

Steph, Kash and Lone were making t-shirt drawstring bags from already sewn material and by the end of the task completed all 30 that had been prepared. Ealing Repair Cafe donated their last bags batch to The Store Cupboard in West Ealing - a not-for-profit shop providing affordable food to people referred by agencies and charities. We should soon find out which charity receives our latest creations.

Sevan got stuck into detailed work of tracing the letters for Act for Ealing banner, then cut them out. That provided us with some good entertainment: making anagrams! Cleft Granola? Teal Frog Clan? Is that a good band name?

We partner with Act for Ealing as a green travel and exercise group and occasionally share our upcoming activities with them. Check out their news - you can find a lot of fantastic events with an environmental theme if you ever get bored with GoodGym. Hopefully you won't as we have an exciting event planned for this Saturday in collaboration with WWF - check it out here!

Welcome to the annual transformation from Night Shelter to B&B. The tasks included painting, cleaning, shifting things and eating left over food.

The cleaning was mainly of the bathrooms and what an amazing job was done! Painting was continuing the excellent job done on Thursday with roller and brush. Shifting? Well how do you fancy moving a tumble dryer? You do? Excellent! Finally the eating. All I can say is 😋 Well done everyone. I’ve eaten my ice cream I got on the way home so this is the end of the report!

Until next time…

Mr K was a bit stressed today as his good neighbour, Ms S, who helped him this morning book a boiler engineer, was moving out soon. She was on a call when I visited Mr K, who handed me the shopping list, money, his Nectar card and a shopping bag. It was not a good time for a chit-chat.

I bought everything from Mr K's list in Sainsbury's, including vine tomatoes - the regular ones - not the fancy-named new kind I spotted in the store. Majestic! That sounded so profound I was not sure who were those tomatoes marketed to. Royals?

Back in Mr K's flat, when we were putting groceries into the fridge, Mr K removed a slightly yellowish broccoli and wanted to throw it away. I declared I'd eat it, and Mr K said I was welcome to take it. I ran back home, where I cooked a clear-the-fridge style lunch, featuring the best-looking pieces of the rescued broccoli 🥦💫

Mr R had two jobs for me today: trimming three rose bushes and chopping down two trees. I started with the easy win, cutting back the largest of the rose bushes, and emerged victorious from the battle with that thorny subject.

Hungry for a greater challenge, I had a rummage in Mr R's superb, even if a bit worn, shed. I wanted to cut down that tree! I tried three different saws (out of six that were in sight) that looked like they were designed to cut through wood. All of them were equally rusty, and I went as far as a quarter of the way into the tree's trunk. While I was in denial that I got stuck, Mr R came to the garden and asked how I was doing.

I admitted that the saws could have been a tad sharper. Mr R pointed me to the shed and showed me that there were more saws on the cupboard, which was taller than me, so I hadn't noticed those tools before. Bluntly speaking (pun intended), none of the three other saws would cut it (pun intended again). Mr R then reached for his ultimate weapon, which he had used for carpentry back when he was younger. Finally, that little saw did the job. Amid the intense sawing, the blade came out just when the tree was going down. Luckily it was not broken and I asked Mr R for a screwdriver to attach it back to the handle so that I could take down the second tree.

"So you're a jack of all trades!" - Mr R.

I guess I am. Before leaving I spoke with Mr R about him looking after his shed, sitting in the greenhouse in the summer and about his work at British Home Store. The chat was so enjoyable that I forgot to take an "after" photo of the trimmed rose bushes. I left wishing Mr R a nice dinner, which I knew he had planned for later in the day.

Ms F is always surprised that I take the stairs, carrying her shopping to the 5th floor, especially the 9 kg of bottled still water. It was no different this time.

"You don't like the lift, I know", she said.

She remembered. That's what I always say. While that's absolutely true, it's more about me just liking the stairs rather than not liking the lift. It's he water's weight, the uphill, the heart beating faster. Just a little bit of discomfort. That's what makes you stronger. That's what makes you savour life.

Taking the stairs instead of the lift. Taking a walk instead of the bus. Doing the mission in the rain (not today for me!) rather than staying in cosy home. That's what makes me feel alive. Resting on a couch afterwards feels more relaxing, the sleep becomes calm, simple food tastes better, not so warm house feels cosy. Everyday things bring delight. No joke.

On the last group run in March, and before the clocks changed to British Summer Time, Sevan took Liuba, Steph and Kash for a run around Walpole Park. The Walpole Park gates were closing around 7 pm, and the GoodGymers made it inside the park just before the cutoff time. They picked up the barrows and tools and headed towards Lammas Enclosure. Now, how would they get out? Maybe they would build a catapult, a mighty trebuchet, to hurl themselves out of the park? One of the GoodGymers, entrusted with a key, unlocked the gate, letting the GoodGymers and two other visitors stuck in the park out.

Trevor from Ealing Transition could not join the task at the Lammas Orchard but left Sevan the instructions. Firstly, the compacted soil in the beds at the back of the enclosure had to be turned, which was masterfully accomplished by Steph.

Secondly, there was woodchip to be spread, as usual. Or maybe not so usual? This time the chips had to be laid in a newly enclosed area - a new hedgehog habitat. It was a real future hedgehog city with urban planning involving lots of trees. Those trees had to be mulched with a thick layer of woodchip, but the hedgehog city was fenced with a thorny barrier! The humans were advised to keep out, so the only sensible way to get the chips inside was to make them fly! The GoodGymers used the shovels as catapults and threw confetti of woodchips into the dark sky.

Despite the darkness, at the end of the task, everyone could see that the mulch cover in the hedgehog city increased significantly and the woodchip pile outside the enclosure almost disappeared. Well done everyone!

Join us next week on the run to Acton to team up again with Ealing Repair Cafe to create crafts to be used by the community. Sign up now!