Tracey and I helped the Gaia installation at the cathedral to manage their visitors. We started to relax after half an hour, thinking that there'd be very few; then the floodgates opened and three school parties came in, all smiling and all in cheerful high viz tops. That set most of the adults smiling too, and we left the buzzing cathedral happy!

Gwyn and Tracey welcomed visitors to the Gaia installation at Derby Cathedral.

821 people visited that day, and we were lucky enough to greet (and "click" in) the last 156 of them before evensong began.

As Gaia rotated past, we had a good view of Kentucky. One of our roles was to had out surveys to visitors. We fried hard to do this, but it was difficult to find the right moment to ask them for details without disturbing their pleasure at the spinning globe. As a result, we chickened out on one or two for risk of spoiling their visit, but we still managed to get quite a few.

Guess what we had for supper that evening (after having picked litter with Rachel)? Believe it or not, fish and chips!

Well, there wasn't a new moon on Monday when Gwyn and Tracey volunteered at Derby Cathedral to welcome visitors to the Gaia installation. This was no ordinary world, it was a very big thing suspended from the cathedral's ceiling; a fantastic reproduction of the earth's surface using serious technology from NASA images. Much of the surface was covered by cloud, but you could clearly spot Rio and the whole of Australia. We needed to save a prayer for those walking underneath the earth - we didn't want it to be falling down.

We welcomed over 150 visitors to the cathedral in our two-hour stint and combined two group fitness activities into the session, cycling 8 km each way, and walking 5 km around town afterwards. The walk left us hungry like the wolf so we treated ourselves to a lovely Thai meal.

Please see details here if you want to sign up for future welcoming duties.

After the physical session was cancelled, the cathedral put on a virtual one on Zoom. Tracey and I learned about our sessions to come at the Gaia installation at Cerby Cathedral. It looks amazing! We're looking forward to helping the visitors, Derby Cathedral, Cosy Foundation, the University of Derby, and Derby Feste.

Did you solve the mystery of the Castle? Tracey took some pictures at the Cathedral to help you.

The weather was better for ducks and turtles than doves as we arrived wet-collared to the cathedral. The famous peregrine falcons nesting in the rock roof of the cathedral hadn't scared off the doves so we had some very wet visitors to welcome to the colourful installation. Tracey used the iPad to survey them, and Gwyn used up the stock of survey forms. The usually peaceful cathedral was treated to an organ rehearsal, so we wood have to use pidgin shouting to communicate at times.

Tracey changed their colour to peacock blue for you, and found a candle on a table so flat that you could play billiards on it.

There are other opportunities before the installation ends on 12th June: complete the survey here to inform the cathedral of your availability.

Gwyn and Tracey shed their yellow and pink cycling coats to reveal their red T-shirts and welcomed visitors to Derby Cathedral to view the Peace Doves installation.

Gwyn had the role of clicking the silver clicker that kept count of the number of visitors, and Tracey alternated between two jobs; collecting survey data on the black i-pad, and changing colours of the lighting that illuminated the white paper doves so that they glowed in shades of green, blue and purple.

As well as our planned fitness session (Gwyn cycling in on Little Blue, and Tracey on silver-grey Daisy), we took part in one of the Derby Walking Festival self-guided walks, following the red route on the city circuit map, and enjoyed a drink of orange juice and black tea before volunteering.

Feeling blue that you missed out on this community mission? There are other opportunities before the installation ends on 12th June, complete the survey here to inform the cathedral of your availability.