Well, it was actually a Chinese lion, but you get the gist.

Rachel, Leah and her two Mini GoodGymers met up with Kathryn at Hermitage Square to help with the setup for the weekend's festival. We started out drawing a giant "yellow brick road" from the entrance to the main performance area with pavement chalk (definitely a job for the smaller ones to save the bigger ones' backs), then cable tied gazebos together, taped banners and tablecloths to tables, unloaded kit from cars, and got lots of bin bags ready.

Once we'd run out of jobs, we headed up to meet the parade at its start point on Edale Road, where we were met by Robert who'd been Parkrunning. We were given the honour of stewarding the front section of the parade, right behind a giant gramophone on top of a car and the Nottingham Chinese Lion Dance team. Not your average Saturday morning!

The parade was huge – much bigger than we had expected – and thankfully we had a pretty easy ride of it with no emergency services vehicles trying to get past, or anyone doing themselves a mischief. Even Leah.

Our final task of a jam-packed weekend was back at Sneinton Primary's allotment.

Natalie got straight to work mowing the whole area to keep it neat and tidy for the kids to get around. Meanwhile, Robert, Leah and another new GoodGymer, Sophie (thanks for joining us!), cleared a patch of nettles, brambles and grasses to create a herb garden, bordered with some of the bricks we had recovered on a previous task.

Smallest GoodGymers Carys and Milo helped Kathryn and her children water all the plants to help them through the lovely sunny period we've been having. They also got to help plant some of Kathryn's huge variety of mints in the new herb garden (and enjoy a delicious home-baked cookie at the end).

What a fantastic morning!

We were part of a huge team helping to transform the school's massive play areas and open spaces.

Our contact Adele had one particular task in mind for us - moving some massive cable reels downhill to create a new playspace in a wooded area. Tom, Robert and our brand new member Andrew took care of the rolling while Rachel and Leah made sure the littlest GoodGymers were occupied and out of the way while tidying the remaining materials.

Next, we took some rubbish down to the bins (including tents!) and joined in with digging the sandpit, moving some very heavy metal picnic benches across the field, and shifting tyres and wheelbarrows full of the excavated soil up to yet another play area.

Definitely a firm favourite task for us all!

A whole bunch of GoodGymers (including Tracy on her first task!) headed back to Sneinton to help our friend Kathryn with another big job.

This time, we sanded down some of the railings at Lees Hill Park and painted them a very bright and shiny blue.

As the paint was oil-based, we set our smallest GGers to litter picking and sweeping up all the old leaves that had gathered around, in between bursts on the playground, of course.

As always, Kathryn provided some delicious, very well-earned sweet treats and some hot drinks!