If you're in t'rubble, call GoodGym!

Browsing Facebook one evening, I saw a post from 'Calderstones Park Forever' :- "The Nature Reserve is progressing well but there are still a couple of serious grot spots that our volunteers cannot tackle and are not very accessible by a digger..."

"If you are a strong footie or other team, group etc that are capable of dealing with this rubble and would like a workout in the park one evening instead of the gym, please email..."

This being the raison d'etre of GoodGym, even though we are not a footie team, I got in touch immediately and a week or two later, seven of us met with the lovely Caroline from Calderstones Park. The area to be cleared was part of the Harthill part of the park, which having once housed thirteen greenhouses containing a world-renowned orchid collection, had fallen into disrepair and was saved by a judicial review a couple of years ago from being turned into a housing estate. A lottery grant has paid for a lot of the work needed to establish a nature reserve on the site instead. A load of concrete, bricks and other debris had been cleared using mechanical diggers, but there were some hard-to-reach spots where good old people-power was needed.

We set to work to clear the first area and also make a pathway to enable us to wheel barrow-loads to the disposal area, using old flagstones to make a neat little ramp. Then is was onto the main area to be cleared, which had once housed a fernery. Countless trugs were filled byLee, Pauline, Christina and Jo, and dozens of wheelbarrow journeys made by [Mina](/runners/mina-mesri, Joe and Jess. In under two hours we'd cleared the 'grot spot' and even managed to shift a very large and heavy bollard!

Well done to all for working so hard today, and a special shout out to Mina and Joe for attending their first GoodGym session with us.