What a lovely first session at Holy Redeemer Pre-School!

We were met with a warm welcome from Laura and Shelley, the school's managers, who lead us into their outdoor space which they have been working hard to spruce up in recent weeks.

They'd already given furniture in the mud kitchen a fresh coat of cream paint, and our job was to do the same for two wee benches and apply a protective layer of wood stain to the rather impressive play house.

We decided to start with the play house. First we needed to deal with the heavy-duty clear pvc blinds that formed the windows. Attempts to roll them up proved tricky but then we realised they could be unhooked along the top! Once they were off we were ready to get going with paint brushes. It was a really relaxing task in the evening light, and of course there was lots of chatting.

Meanwhile Laura and Shelley sanded and painted the wooden frame of a large freestanding plastic screen that the children use for drawing on.

With the house done -both outside and inside - Johnny re-hung the 'windows' while the rest of us turned our attention to the benches. A quick sanding and some brisk brush-work meant we got them finished in the nick of time.

So much achieved in just an hour. We're looking forward to coming back again, to continue the renovations.

This month's visit to Holy Trinity Lamorbey Primary School was a fun inside - outside double act.

Inside, Team Paint picked up classroom decorating where we left off last time. With a couple of walls already done, we wanted to finish the rest to leave the space looking clean, warm and ready for learning.

Outdoors, Team Green took advantage of the warm-ish evening, sawing branches from a felled tree into short lengths that will be used to make wildlife-friendly mini dead-hedges 🐛🪲 and cosy homes for hedgehogs 🦔.

The hour flew past and we packed away paint, brushes and rollers and collected up saws and loppers, then posed for the traditional team photo in the fading light.

Just before leaving, Vice Principal Jane offered us seedling cherry trees that pupils had grown from stones collected in last year's bumper crop of fruit from the tree in their outdoor learning area. Susan, Caroline and Simon headed home, very pleased with these unexpected gifts 🪴.

Over the summer months we're looking forward more outdoor projects at the school... fingers crossed some of them line up with this year’s cherry season! 🍒

After a run with the sun setting we met up with Jo (Annette had a night off) at the Parkview Care Home reception ready to start tonight's task.

We got stuck in making Easter bunnies and painting Easter eggs. We managed to entice the more reluctant residents to participate with egg-ceptional results! Some of them really came out of their shells!

The time flew by and before we knew it it was time to go.

See you all next time.

It was full-on painting action at our monthly session at Holy Trinity Lamorbey Primary School last night.

On our previous visit we tackled two rather bold feature walls — one bright yellow and one deep claret — swapping the brash colours for something a little warmer. We're still debating whether the shade is technically 'cream' or 'magnolia', but whatever its official name, the school loved the new look so much they asked us back to paint the rest of the walls to replace their stark white.

We got busy with brushes, rollers and trays of paint, working in teams across the two classrooms. Impressively we mostly managed to get it all done within our allotted hour. Caretaker Andy will handle the high bits that were just out of our reach.

A second coat might still be needed, but the transformation is already clear to see.

Keeping a close eye on proceedings throughout was Brecon the school dog, who enthusiastically supervised, posed for photos and treated us to a few tricks. There were also a few musical interludes, with spontaneous renditions of songs from the musicals. (Oliver! and West Side Story proved particularly popular choices 🎵🎶.)

We'll be back again in April, so if you'd like to join the fun, come along! No painting experience required and we might actually settle the debate about the paint colour if we remember to check the label on the tin. Oh and singing is entirely optional.