When I woke up this morning I threw the covers off of me and sat up
before opening the blinds at my window, it was a sunny day outside.
The heat of the sun shone upon my back as I hauled myself out of
bed only to pull on a pair of boxers, shorts and an old pair of baggy
pants, plus one T-shirt. I then proceeded to the bathroom to brush
my teeth and wash myself down since I knew I would be tread milling
sometime today non the less.
As time passed by I gathered my belongings and coat before slipping
it on and walking out to the bus stop where I waited for about fifteen
minutes for the X8 to arrive which it eventually did.
Not long later, the bus docked at the Haymarket bus station where I
got off and walked to Monument, trying my best to ignore passers byand avoiding people handing out leaflets. I stood at the other side ofthe road, confused, anxious before I saw a familiar face through myshort sighted vision “Martyn?” I called and walked over to greet him“Am I in the right place?” I asked in a concerned tone before hepointed to the other side of the road “We’re over there pal.” He said
and I nodded before making my way over to the others and Tina,our..mentor?
Not long after waiting with our Greggs in hand the Taxi eventually
arrived to take us to our destination. ‘Hooray’ we all cheered in glee
before splitting up as there were Two Taxi’s. I hopped in the Taxi
with Martyn, Tina and Sophie. I stared out the window in amazement
as I’d never really been in a city before, even Newcastle was anexciting trip as we made our way to Wickham after School Club.
It took the whole of Fifteen minutes to arrive, staring at the money
counter at the front of the Taxi rise up about Twenty Pence every
few metres for the remainder of the journey. The vehicle stopped
and we got out on the path, the others followed behind after having

exited their vehicle and we all walked down the winding path to thefront gate where Michele spoke into the intercom to be let in. We
were let in and walked through into the main room where we weregreeted by one of the after school teachers and shown around to be
told what to do.
Strimming, grass removing, soil turning and painting. I chose my partto be involved with grass removing and soil turning. Grabbing myshovel I let out a soft content sigh and made my way to the bottomof the garden where Martyn, Jomah and Jack followed, having
shovels for themselves and garden forks. “Sun’s a bit hot today?”said Martyn as I slammed my shovel into the soft grassy soil. I looked
up at him and nodded, pressing my foot down on the edge before
digging up a patch of grass, tossing it near to the back of the gate.
“I’ve been waiting for the sun to come back, actually.” I smiled andnodded again “Me and my dad used to go bike riding everyday lastsummer…he’s moved down past London now..to Kent of course..” Isaid before giving a frown of disappointment, giving my shovel
another angry slam into the dirt, digging up another patch of grass“the anxiety doesn’t help either, he was supposed to be helping me
deal and grow out of it but…oh sorry, let’s just keep digging.” By thispoint I just wanted to dig and forget, a good memory of last year in2015 clouded by the acts of early 2016.
A couple hours passed before a little under half the garden wascompleted, it only being a small section to begin with. “Alright guys,
is everybody ready for lunch?” I turned my head, it was Tina standingat the path “Yes” said everyone and we all made our way off thegarden. The meal for today was set to Fish and Chips at the small
chip shop just around the corner at the top of the bank, I felt rather
unfortunate that I had to go too but became positive again when Iknew the walk would do me some good.

We exited the facility and ascended the gravel bank to the chip shop
were most of us sat down and had a smoke “Are you sure you don’t
want anything?” asked Michele and I give another nod “I swear
down miss, I’m absolutely fine.” I say crossing my legs on the floor. It
took a whole Twenty minutes for everything to be cooked. I pulled
myself back up to my feet when everyone started to come over,standing still until I was at the back of the crowd “Alright Gavin? Do
you want something to drink at least because there is a shop upahead.” Said Tina, it took me a bit to think about it “Urhm..coke?
Diet coke?” I asked and she nodded as we all proceeded to walk up
towards the seats, the shop being just down the steps from there.
We all sat down and I sat down on the wall with my legs up andcrossed. Tina came over and handed me a Silver can of pop, I
thanked here and opened it, taking a sip as everyone was chatting inthe background. I felt rather nervous again, trying to drown out thefeeling by thinking of things I would do tonight, wishing I had
internet on my phone at this point.
Luckily for me we were only there for fifteen minutes more before
we had to return to our daily duties which we did, making our way
back down to the school club. “Back to it then?” I was asked by
Jomah and I laughed while picking my shovel back up, jumping downback into the dirt. At this point my half filled can of Coke was settled
in my pants pocket, making sure I stayed upright so that it didn’t
spill. A near half hour later the keeper of the club came out withsome juice and cups and begun to pour the freshly cooled liquid. Istared, the sweat on my forehead dripping as the sun gleamed over
my body “Thank you miss.” I thought to myself, and made my way
over, there were quite a few sections left where there were stuck
down patches of grass but most of us had started turning the soil
anyway.

I shrugged off the thought and made my way over to the side wall
where I grabbed myself a drink since the can in my pocket was empty
now. Wiping my forehead, I thought it would be a good idea to go
about shovelling out the loose patches of grass while the others wereturning the soil. We made great progress for one day, the bottom of
the garden still needing to be dug up but it was fine since we had all
day tomorrow to continue.
Seeing as we only had half an hour left of work I stabbed my shovel
into the ground and leaned back against the wall, taking a fiveminute break while everyone else continued, even a couple of others
joined me “You alright Gavin?” Martyn asked me and I turned to him,clutching the shovel tight “Oh aye pal, don’t you worry about me,haha.” I joked, and leaned there for Fifteen minutes more, keeping
under the shade of the fence away from the sun before deciding togo back to work for the last Ten minutes, turning as much soil as I
could before it was time to leave. We gathered the tools and put
them back behind the bin, going back inside to grab my coat.
We all left through the front door and walked back up the steep
gradient hill towards the waiting point for the Taxi’s. It wasn’t long
before they turned up and we got back into the same Taxi’s as wecame in. I pulled on my seat belt and away we went back into
Newcastle, once again staring out the window at all the sights of thecity, still rather astounded. “You’re going to the Haymarket?” asked
the driver “Oh aye, that’ll be fine” replied Tina and I considered
myself lucky, seeing as that’s exactly where I needed to be. We all
got out, Tina paid him and he was on his way. There was no sign ofthe other Taxi, he must have known where he was going. I smirked
to myself and looked around the area before walking to the stop
lights, crossing the road into the Haymarket where I got back on theX8 and sat for the journey home after a job well done.