On the day of the 50th Anniversary of Brent River Park, Steph and Kash returned to Brent Meadow in late afternoon to do their morning setup - but in reverse!

The GoodGymers had missed the whole party and encountered a very quiet meadow, minutes before the event closure, with some stall holders, tired of heat, counting the time to 5pm. Apparently in the middle of the day it was not as quiet! Steph and Kash met familiar LAGER Canners at one of the stalls: Jacquie, who is also a GoodGymer, and Angela, whom Kash had met on a litterpicking event by the canal.

The first job for the GoodGymers was to collect the event signage and use their mildly fried brains to solve the puzzle of folding easels. Next up, the complexity went up with the puzzle of folding gazebos of various sizes. The most tricky part was fitting a folded gazebo in a cover. The answer was to change a letter. What does that mean? It means that an H-marked gazebo will fit in an H-marked bag, and not the one with the letter F on it!

The most exciting exercise was surely assisting our friend Ben from Clean Up River Brent with folding and loading his tents. The best part of it? Ben didn't want to dismantle the special "privacy tent" that served as the performers' changing room on the spot. He preferred to carry it as a whole towards his car, so we ended up running with Ben and the tent across the meadow like a giant kite, ready to fly.

Speaking of carrying constructed gazebos and tents around the park, the team had not make the same mistake as in the morning, navigating through a proper maze of obstacles to carry a gazebo towards the Millenium Maze! This time Steph had the pleasure to carry that gazebo back as a small, folded piece with only one other person.

It would be great to get another opportunity to support Brent River Park with its big event, and maybe see more of the activities. The next chance... in 50 years?

Sevan and Kash were already in Southall, after a midday mission, and only a short 2km run away from Featherstone High School, where they reunited with Steph, who squeezed more running and a pit stop at home into the day.

The day was hot, and despite being only a group of three, the GoodGymers made up a half of today's volunteers, alongside Alex, Andrew and Gurpal. It was a sweaty workout in the scorching sun, and we couldn't blame anyone for staying at home in such heath. Alex kindly brought us water, and our job in return was to water the plants. But there was more.

We started ambitiously, helping Gurpal from Southall Transition dig the "bad soil", contaminated with plastic, out of the area where Gurpal had planted berries for children. The planting had been done in a rush and Gurpal was not entirely happy with the soil quality, so the blueberries, strawberries and others had to be re-planted. While Kash came across a couple of bin bags buried in the soil, Steph encountered a drain cover under the layer of dirt, so that area was out of the planting plans.

While Steph and Kash helped Gurpal wheelbarrow the "good soil" to the berry bed, relocate the plants and scatter the compost around, Sevan was on the watering duty, carrying heavy canisters from the school to the thirsty plants. He was later joined by Steph, who loved the opportunity to splash a little bit in the cold, running water. Kash in the meantime removed some big weeds from a tiny raised bed.

The highlight of the community mission was the sight of a majestic dragonfly hanging over the pond. Steph managed to capture the view with his phone camera just before finishing the session.

We are looking to organise the next session at Featherstone late in July, so watch this space!