It was unbeleafably chilly and very dark as a lovely big group of us gathered in the village of Burchetts Green to help out at the infant school. There was also an odd feeling of celebration in the air as this was the Eve of Lockdown 2, and therefore our last chance for a a good few weeks to be out in these numbers and on this kind of non-essential task.

Amy, Jess and Sophie arrived feeling toasty from having run cross country from Maidenhead. Amy loves a star-lit, muddy adventure and was thrilled that Sophie and Jess were persuaded to join her - not least because if she had met that enormous red combine harvester in the dark by herself she might never have made it to the school at all.

We were welcomed by Rob, the head teacher at Burchetts Green Infant School, and it was great to meet parents from the school, including Katherine, Jordan, Louise, and Sarah, who had heard about the session and wanted to get involved. Welcome to GoodGym!

GoodGym member Gareth also showed great commitment by coming all the way from Windsor to join us. You might be relived to hear he drove rather than running the 15-20km alone in the dark, and don't worry he still got an excellent workout during the task and on the climbing frame afterwards.

Our to do list for the evening included clearing up heaps and heaps of fallen leaves from all over the school grounds, weeding and cutting back hedges from around the entrance and digging over the raised beds in the sensory garden; and the school had done a great job gathering all the right tools for the job.

Some of the more memorable moments from the evening included: Sophie and Jess's synchronised 'rake runs' across the playground to clear leaves and their victory lap on the ride-on tractors afterwards (plus tractor santisiation to reduce risk of Covid-19 transmission); Jordan's expert handling of the leaf blower; Sophie falling in love with the big green leaf-grabbers; Gareth's incredible strength tipping a ton of leaves over the fence; Jess braving the brambles to retrieve a bag after another leaf-tipping attempt went a bit wrong; some excellent logistical levering with a rake handle to avoid the need for further bramble bravery; and Amy lobbing various weeds and debris at Gareth from a height.

Before and after photos of a large outdoor area are hard to capture in the dark, so please use your imagination to picture large patches of tarmac, astro turf and grass being revealed, huge piles of leaves disappearing, and climbing frames seeming to grow taller as the sea of leaves beneath them is swept away.

From Burchetts Green to Burchetts clean! We wonder what the children made of it in the morning...? We had a lovely time at the school and we hope to be invited back at some point to help with painting window sills and doors.

After an hour or so fingers were freezing and hot drinks and showers beckoned. Amy, Jess and Sophie were rewarded with sparkling frost on the grass and a lovely moon on their (slightly longer...oops!) run back to Maidenhead.

**As we enter Lockdown, GoodGym will not be shutting down. We will be focussing our efforts on helping those charities providing essentials to the more vulnerable members of our community. We have lots of listings to help at the Baby Bank in Maidenhead over the next month, and we also encourage members to support their isolated neighbours and to work with other community groups in the Covid response. Good deeds done outside the GoodGym listings can still be self-logged on your GoodGym profile. If you are new to GoodGym and you want to know more about ways to get involved, Amy would love to hear from you.