It was a tale of two tasks tonight, but also a tale of 2 races as we celebrated the weekends activities, with some runners taking on the High Cup Nick Fell Race and another group tackling the brutal winds at the Snake Lane 10miler. Well done to everyone who took part, especially Amy who scored a new PB 🥳

We numbered off by naming our alternative career choices and it's pretty safe to say we're all eagerly anticipating the release of Rich's debut pop album with Paul Kelly on guitar and Leanne as a backing dancer the live shows! 🎤

We then split off into two groups with Vicky's heading to Holgate Community Garden and Ed's going to the King's Path.

At Holgate Community Garden the majority of the team got stuck into some weeding of the flower beds whilst a few others were tackling compost bins.

After a successful session the group got into pairs for a fitness session which involved one person running up a hill whilst the other completed some exercise, swapping over each time.

Over at the King's Path the group was tasked with digging up some unwanted trees from round the corner and then transported then over to the King's Path area to be replanted Cue an awful lot of innuendo involving holes and wood!

The task was satisfyingly completed on time, and we're all eager to see how the trees get on in their new homes.

The group then headed back to CVS in an indian-file skipping line (who knew how knackering it would be to skip for that long!) before then switching it up to sprints, with Matt in particular exhibiting his speediness to give us all some extra motivation

The two groups then met back up at CVS for some stretches and some lovely lemon cake courtesy of Pete's mummy! 🍰

Unfortunately we weren't able to dig up any trees at the Kings Path today due to a lack of permission. However, not to be deterred we went with plan B which was to do a litter pick of the area instead (the second of the day for some of us). After about 40 minutes we'd gathered several bags of rubbish and headed off to a local café for an early lunch and to get warm.

Tonight we had a bumper turnout to help at the Kings wildflower meadow path.

A select group set off at party pace followed by the main group after naming and numbering off. We were also joined by a few cyclists and some folk joined us at the task.

We had a few unexpected late sign ups so we needed to split into two groups with one taking on the litter pick challenge and the other tackling dock leaves.

The litter pickers had a list of treasure to find in pairs with the tie breaker being a selfie. Mitch and Lyndsay were the only team to collect everything even though they had to climb over the fence to the beck!

Group dock leaves were introduced to a new tool - the lazy fox - which was used to slice dock leaves at their base.

Time quickly passed and we were back off to base via a few hill reps on little Hob Moor.

All our good work was rewarded with Rich's brownies, which were still warm!

Four fabulous friday fun Yorkies met at the new Kingsway West meadow to help Gordon. We rapidly bagged up the straw / hay / cuttings / mowings / weeds. Armed with arms, hands and a pitchfork we filled the builders bags so quickly we had to go in search of more. Getting lost after not really heeding Gordon's directions did mean we got some extra steps in. Stomping down the contents of the bags didn't result in sufficient space for all the straw, but we all know that means - watch this space as there'll be another trip to the meadow soon to finish off what we have started.

Myself and Michal returned to the Kings Path Wildflower 🌸🌼 Meadow in the warm sunshine (this time joined by Michael and Lyndsey ) to finish off from where we left off last week. We had raked up lots of piles which now needed to be moved across to the compost heap.

One of the other volunteers had a large tarpaulin which we used to good effect to drag the piles across. Michael managed to deliver himself into the heap as well at one point! We soon discovered that the tarpaulin was developing lots of holes with each trip and it was leaving small pieces of plastic across the site. Michal suggested that we folded it in half and this solved the problem. We then did a litter pick and collected up all the little pieces of bright blue plastic that we could find. In just over half an hour we were all done and we headed off, most of us to a local café for some well-earned refreshments.

Four of us GG Yorkies set out for the Kings Path Wildflower Meadow despite the rain showers. Michal kindly went around into Lincoln Court and retrieved the tools that Gordon had left for us (he was busy doing a "Gardener's Question Time" in Acomb* so wasn't able to join us). We were lucky that the rain stopped just as we started work.

Armed with our large rakes we soon gathered big piles of grass and other vegetation which we moved (well mostly Clare moved) over to the compost heaps. This wasn't an easy task as the grass was quite long when it was cut and as it was wet, even quite a small pile was fairly heavy. As it was taking quite a bit of time and effort to move the piles, we decided to leave the piles where they were, to be moved at a later date. Also, the compost bins were quickly getting overwhelmed with the volume of stuff that we had raked up.

After almost an hour we had raked the whole area and created a small but lovely countryside scene. It was great to see how this area is developing and that we are winning the battle of the docks! We hope to see more wildflowers springing up soon.

*where GoodGym was mentioned!