On a humid April evening 16 volunteers ran to Donkey Lane near Perfect View in Bath. We did lots of useful cutting and weeding at the community gardening project there. We had lots of fun and did some great hill training!

Welcome!

We met outside the leisure centre and I shared the latest news and notices. We have organised 2 fantastic Community Missions for this weekend. See the bottom of the run for details! After a warm-up we were on our way.

"H'ill stop us running up hills one day..."

We ran up Walcott Street and up the steep steps in Hedgemead Park. This really burned the quadriceps and was a fantastic workout for us all! We paused at the top to catch our breath and (did some tricep dips in the meantime!) made it to Donkey Lane with plenty of time.

No foaling around!

Our host, Sue, was ready and waiting for us. Donkey Lane is a community garden that is managed by Transition Bath. The garden is run entirely by volunteers and anyone is welcome to come and help improve the garden and enjoy the produce. They grow an assortment of fruit and veg, including apples and kale!

There was lots of work for us to do and Sue split us into groups.

Nettle the devil you know!

Some of the runners were using shears to cut down nettles and large weeds on the side of the path. With all the good weather we have been enjoying recently they have started to run wild! This useful work helps keen the pathway clear and safe which is good for the gardeners and also other members of the public using the Donkey Lane foothpath.

We'ed never give up!

Another group spent the evening on their hands and knees with an assortment of tools to improve the path that runs inside the garden. The GoodGymmers were using trowels and even knives and forks to remove weeds from the path. To make sure we didn't damage the path, we made sure to use our tools to cut the weeds at their base instead of pulling them straight out from the root. Our hard work made a massive difference to the look of the path. The path is clearer and safer for gardeners to use and it also makes it clear to the public that the area is a tended community garden and not an overgrown patch of land.

A forkin' hard bit of work!

Other runners were using pitch forks to turn over some ground to make it more suitable for planting later in the year. This was tough work as the ground hasn't been worked for a while!

WELL DONE QUEEN MARY!!

We took a moment to honour a well-travelled member of our group. This task was Mary's 199th good deed and her coach run later this week will be her 200th. This is a massive achievement that we wanted to recognise, so Steph, in classic GoodGym spirit, presented Mary with an amazing '200' t-shirt complete with buttons and rubber gloves that she had made at home. And of course we insisted that Mary wore the top on the run back! What an inspiration to us all.

On our run back we paused to watch a group of Morris dancers in the centre of Bath. There was discussion about combining our cool-down into some kind of dance procession to match them as a rival group...

Thanks!

Thanks to Emily for backmarking for us last night and making sure no one got lost! Thanks to Joe for another brilliant pun! Thanks to Steph for helping me take pictures and thanks to Sue for hosting us at the task. We had lots of fun and we will be back soon (hopefully at harvest time!!!).

Upcoming runs

• We have a great Community Mission on Sat 27th April at The Orchard
• We are also doing a really fun Community Mission on Sun 28th April as part of the 2019 Worldwide City Nature Challenge
• Next week: we have a hilly run to help out at St Phillips and St James Church
• In June there is an exciting race in Cheddar Gorge that some of GG Bath have already signed up for
• In June we are also helping at the Saltford Festival