I can't believe how quickly December 5th came around, it feels like I have been at Wells for no time at all. However, this is the day we've been working towards all term and I feel it was a great success.
I was a little anxious that I had not heard back from Ben and Lufton Collage at the beginning of the week and thought they may have changed their minds but Ben finally got back to me on Monday afternoon with news that they were aiming to arrive around 10:00am. This was fantastic as it was a little earlier than I anticipated and therefore I was hoping to get more done.
I managed to beg Immy to leave a little earlier on Wednesday so we arrived at the Palace around 9:30am which gave me a bit of time to help Amanda set up although she was extremely organised and was pretty ready to roll.
I was stood by the drawbridge all ready for the collage to arrive and time began to tick away and again anxiety bubbled when they were still nowhere to be seen at 10:20am. By this point I was feeling rather cold and was beginning to wonder what I was going to tell Amanda if they hadn't arrived within the next 10 minutes. To my immense relief they did and by 10:30 we were all warming up in the Learning Room with tea, coffee, biscuits and a health and safety chat.
There were 12 students and 4 staff from Lufton College plus some regular volunteers all willing to help out so it looked as if it would be a promising day.
At the beginning of the day, the surrounding area looked like this:
Most of our work was concentrated behind the tree, along the back wall and to the right. The volunteers were fantastic, they were all really eager to work and so refreshing to be around. I learnt so much from them whether it was about different tractors or Family Guy or even Call of Duty. Their staff were amazing as well as it takes a lot of patience and encouragement to work with special needs especially in an environment like ours where we didn't have all the time in the world.
By lunch time, it was clear that we had made quite a sizable dent:
From the same point I took the original picture, it looks like little has been done but you can see that all the border along the back wall has been cleared ready for planting and although the sun is the way, the other picture shows where we began to clear away the area to the right of the trees.
After lunch, we had another couple of hours before the volunteers had to leave for their trip back to Yeovil. We had the extra help from some of the Cathedral School volunteers as well to add to our workforce. My role changed after lunch, instead of helping the college clear the area itself, I took over Amanda's initial role of standing on top of the ever growing compost heap that we were creating and ensuring that it was piled up high rather than running into the pathway. It was a glamorous job but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was working with two of the College students - Jack and Leah - as well as Elspeth, one of the Palace Gardeners. It gave me the opportunity to get to know them all a little better and there was Christmas songs involved at one stage; Last Christmas was a particular favourite.
After working hard, these were our final results:
Whilst I was busy playing in the beautiful mound of what-will-be compost, the other volunteers were busy cutting away all the excess grass and weeds and even beginning to dismantle a tree. The end results looked absolutely fantastic and I was blown away by all their hard work. The feedback I got from Ben is that everyone really enjoyed their day and Amanda has said that we will invite them back when the time comes to begin planting.
Next week, Amanda and I will be having a meeting to discuss how the day went overall as well as the next big steps for the project. I think it is all running smoothly at the moment and I'm happy with the progress we are making.
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