On a warm, yet cloudy Sunday morning, four almost inappropriately lively GoodGymers met at the place of eternal rest for many dead Ealing residents: South Ealing Cemetery. Alan put in his mileage for the day, running from Chiswick with a detour past Hammersmith Bridge, while Steph Ducat did a rather fast 4km run from Pitshanger junior parkrun to reach the community mission on time. Sevan and Kash, on the other hand, needed only a short walk/jog to get to the cemetery. They'd get their morning workout nonetheless!

The volunteering day was led by the trustees from Ealing Parks Foundation, Jane and Paul, who took a very hands-on approach to their work to improve green spaces. Jane offered us a task to help prepare a photography exhibition in one of the chapels, while Paul had something much more physical in mind. His idea of a job for GoodGymers was to build a stumpery.

Sevan: What's a stumpery?
Paul: It's like a bug hotel with artistic features. King Charles has one at Highgrove.

We've been pointed towards a pile of rotting tree stumps and logs by the cemetery wall. We were going to move the timber into a designated location, then assemble in an artistic manner. We'd then fill the gaps between the wood with logs so rotten that they've been falling apart and some woodchip.

After plenty of muscle work, finding giant spiders, two toads, hitting ant nest while digging rotten material, and wheelbarrowing a few loads of fragrant woodchip, our artistic creation was complete. Did it resemble a feature from a royal garden? Or something else?

Sevan: Paul, can I ask you a question. Are we building a bonfire?
Paul: Hopefully, not. The idea is to get the insects in, who'd think: ah, that's a nice housing estate.

We couldn't tell how many bugs we've attracted to the new town so far. We rehomed a few hundred ants and some slugs that were already residing in the building blocks. Two toads became the residents too, with the hope that they would multiply - but we weren't sure they were of the opposite sex to each other.

Building the stumpery took us way more than half of a session - although Alan and Sevan were hijacked to do a side quest: moving a heavy cherry-picker cage between the chapels. We'd then realise there were two more sites to assemble our artistic expressions. Paul started deciphering the instructions from his contact in the council about where to find the next stumpery location.

Paul: Fifth U from the chapel, second grave towards Occupation Lane.
Kash (whispers): What is a U?
Sevan: I think they meant a yew tree.

Fortunately, it didn't take us long to find the next stumpery site. According to the reference photo, there should have been a wooden tripod to mark the location, but that structure had most likely collapsed. Once we started carrying and wheelbarrowing even heavier logs than before, there was no return. Enriched by the previous creative experience, we've built the second stumpery in only 30 minutes and called it a day, as it was already noon. Whether our art installations were worthy of the King, we couldn't tell, but surely they were worthy to be called insect penthouses.

Five GoodGymers who volunteered at Acton junior parkrun in the morning, couldn't have enough fresh air on a sunny Sunday and decided on another session in South Ealing. After their usual post-parkrun coffee break, Michelle cycled 3.5 km to the next destination while Harvey, Steph Ducat, Sevan and Kash raced her on foot. The runners' route took them through South Ealing Cemetery, which had a surprising number of roundabouts! At one of the roundabouts, the team met Gaby and Simon - the latter on his official first session - although he had been familiar with GoodGym for a while! Everyone, including Beata, who walked to the task, eventually made it to the cemetery chapel and met Paul from the Ealing Parks Foundation.

Today's job was a continuation of last month's task to spread the Christmas joy over the cemetery. In other words, we were laying (very coarse) woodchip made of last year's Christmas trees over the cemetery's side paths. Our impressive team of eight split between three paths, and our smallest unit joined two local volunteers, David and Keith, with whom we exchanged experiences about interesting community projects in Ealing we had worked on. We joked about finding minced Christmas lights among the woodchip piles. In fact, one of us discovered a Christmas decoration piece resembling a diamond!

Speaking of precious goods, today wheelbarrows were worth a million as we had only two of them to share. One of our smaller teams used a tonne bag for woodchip transport instead - those GoodGymers had the best full-body workouts! Fantastic teamwork (despite Harvey's two right gloves) allowed us to complete all three paths before noon when we decided to call it a day. The retired Christmas trees could now rest in pieces at the necropolis.

The best reward for our volunteering efforts was spending the morning outdoors, in the sun, surrounded by the tranquil atmosphere of early spring. The blossoms on the trees made the South Ealing Cemetery resemble a magical park.

"Maybe that's weird, but I like cemeteries. I am not scared of them. They are so quiet and peaceful." - said Gaby.

Gaby was not the only one appreciating the unique serenity of graveyards. The Ealing Parks Foundation's project, which we supported today, aims for South Ealing Cemetery to retain its charm and dignity while transforming it into a welcoming green space for everyone to relax. If you are local to the area and are looking for a quiet space to go for a walk and clear your mind, visit the cemetery and be delighted by its calming atmosphere!

The cycle of reuse in Ealing in January often involves Xmas trees. They go from being individually decorated in a warm home to huddling together in cold parks, discarded. They decay, they get chipped, then they find themselves a new purpose as a fir-shy aromatic path covering.

Today, GoodGym Ealing paired up with Paul Carter of Ealing Parks Foundation, who they know well from tasks at Western Road Community Garden to improve the paths of South Ealing Cemetery. Huge piles of Xmas tree sourced wood chip had been left on the main road through the cemetery as well as being left in slightly smaller piles on the side paths leading between the graves. There was thankfully a large group of volunteers to help distribute it around the cemetery.

Liuba spent an arm achingly long 2 hours forking wood chip from the giant piles on the path to ton bags. The bags were dragged by other volunteers onto paths and spread to create a soft, absorbent, non-slip surface.

The other GoodGymers, Steph, Harvey and Sevan were working on paths that had already had a delivery of wood chip, with mini-mountains placed at irregular intervals along their length. Strangely, this seemed to make the job of spreading the wood chip harder as it wasn't placed where it was needed. Also, there was high quality wood chip that looked like, well, wood chip and Xmas tree wood chip that looked like mouldy leaves and giant chunks of trunk, which would be quite uncomfortable to walk over. The volunteers working those paths tried to remove the chunkier and spikier pieces when their rakes caught them.

Half way through the task the local MP, Dierdre Costigan, arrived to survey the progress and learn more about the cemetery. Some of the GoodGymers were nearby and learned about the Victorian clock mechanism that was being restored and the mortuary-turned-tool-shed in the chapel building. After a group photo, it was back to work.

The paths were levelled out as far as possible. They were still quite lumpy where the original wood chip mounds had started off, so Paul assured the team that a digger would come along soon to smooth them. The whole group of volunteers managed to complete 3 paths and were well on the way to a fourth by the time the GoodGymers left.