A great philosopher once said:

You gotta roll with it. You gotta take your time. You gotta spray where you spray. Don't let anybody get in your way

Tonight, GoodGym Ealing heeded the wise philosophers words while at Impact Theatre. We were there to work on a corridor. A corridor that our some of our members remember prepping over recent years.

We were only 8 who ventured up to Perivale so that we wouldn't get in each others way during the task. We were to wield paint rollers and cover the walls with white paint, replacing the old terracotta colour that was peeking through the undercoat.

We quickly got our equipment ready with Kash pouring paint into roller trays. Jenni, Emily, Madhan, Kat and Sevan grabbed rollers and paint brushes while Cam and a vertically challenged (so he claimed) Mike grabbed rollers on extendable poles to reach the heights.

For the first 20 minutes, it looked like we were removing more paint from the walls that we were adding to them. More and more terracotta paint appeared and we were all a bit worried. While we discussed what to do next, we saw that some of us were sprayed with paint, while others had managed to avoid getting any white freckles.

As the first coat dried, we were able to paint over it and get the second coat to stick. Finally we were making progress and the walls actually looked whiter than when we had arrived! With the second coat still wet, we decided the most productive thing we could do was take the time for a tea break.

We sat in the kitchen area with Peter from Impact Theatre. He told us about the roles that Impact's actors had had on TV and how they had adapted during Covid. Luckily they'd survived and are planning for their next theatre production in the summer.

After 15 minutes, Jenni went back to check on the walls and see if we'd be able to add a third and final coat. Unfortunately not, so we packed up and washed the paint rollers, promising Peter we'd be back to finish the job in the coming months.