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.