A fake bird of prey glided across the grey sky, restrained by a string tying it to the roof of Featherstone High School. If it had eyes, it would watch two GoodGymers hiding from the rain under the sheltered area. Steph and Kash ran nearly 8km from their previous task in Hanger Hill and tried to get their t-shirts a little bit drier before putting on the rain jackets.

In front of the closed gate to the school garden, where their task awaited, stood one bag of woodchip. Only one! Alex, the task owner, was desperate to refresh the look of the path that the GoodGymers had helped lay in the summer. Over a few months and many classes held in the garden, the path wore out a bit and the bald patches needed covering. The stakes were higher than usual as the following day the garden was supposed to host its first celebration! And not only a celebration of the Learnscape project, but a Diwali-themed event.

For the whole past week, the kids have been drawing and colouring pictures for the party! - Alex

When the cavalry arrived, Alex opened the garden gate and did speed-weeding to get rid of the biggest grass patches from the path. Gurpal fixed a spare shovel from a nearby community allotment, and Andrew started tidying the path edges. Steph and Kash dropped three wheelbarrows of chips in the middle of the path - supposedly, the furthest point where the honourable guests, including the Mayor of Ealing, would go. When the GoodGymers filled the fourth wheelbarrow, their shovels and rakes hit the bottom of the half-tonne bag. Uh oh! The bag was now easy to drag by one person, which meant there was hardly any woodchip left. With some tactical raking, the volunteers blended the new woodchip with the old one and concluded it was the best they could do with the amount of donated material.

The next priority was the tidy-up.

- Are we going to rake the leaves? - Andrew.
- No. It's supposed to be a winter garden. It's not for the opening of a new Asda. - Alex.

Eventually, the team raked some of the leaves near the entrance, but the main clearing task was to move the smaller stacks of sticks and weeds onto the big compost pile. The cleared space would be used to extend the area where the children had seeded the wildflowers. Before Steph and Kash removed all signs of the old green waste heaps, Alex salvaged a few bamboo sticks to help the sunflowers stand up straight in front of the Mayor the following day. Gurpal did the hard work digging at the back of the garden, and Andrew completed a round of litterpicking.

We are now hoping that, with our extra help, everyone will have a great time at the Monday celebration!