Bit chilly outside this morning, but things soon heated up when the feisty parkrun peeps tried to stage a mini-mutiny during the warm-up! Thankfully the (fairly good-natured :-)) rebellion was quickly put down and and so we headed off for our tasks with smiles on faces and the sun on our backs - didn't need the running jacket after all!.

At St Werburghs we split into two groups (thanks everyone for being flexible on task choice!) and Mel and Dave led one team off to the community centre gardening day while I continued on with the others to meet Mina Road Park Group.

Bramble-geddon

If Goodgym are a Justice-League style band of super-heroes then brambles must be their arch-enemies and the evil Dr Bramble had certainly been busy here, with the lovely green space outside Better Food choked by his minions' thorny claws.

The Park Group had already done much to clear away the surface growth before we arrived so our job was to tackle the roots. After some instruction from our host Hugh, Liam skillfully wielded the mattock (much like Thor with his hammer) while everyone else armed themselves with spades and by the end of the session we had prepared most of the patch for some new planting in the Spring.

Hammer At-tack

Meanwhile, having already shifted a couple of lengths of timber, some of the gardening group were now hard at work preparing the frame for a new compost heap, attaching a liner to the back and sides with a hammer and some tacks.

With Clo helping to move an army of wheelie bins back into the shed space freed up by the timber, it only remained for David and Dec to prepare a hole for one of the wooden posts that was to form a play installation at the centre. This involved smashing down through the concrete with a heavy pole before digging down the 15cm required for the post.

All in all, we smashed two tasks and certainly earned our lunch today.

Just heard from Hugh and he wanted me to pass on his thanks today:

Thanks very much for all your hard work this morning. Your runners really put their backs into it ,and we were amazed how much got done. In addition ,they were a really nice lot ,and it was a pleasure to have you all there