Hard as a rock

Today started with a massive round of applause for Leanne who has recently reached 800 good deeds. It means that Leanne was out 800 times volunteering in York! That is a huge achievement deserving a massive CHEER!

Following a Michal-Egg jointly run warm-up we split up into two teams and were ready to do more good in York.

A team of 11 ran over to Glen Gardens to clear the borders around the new accessible pathway.

Adi met them there and warned that the ground was hard and dry but that was a massive understatement. It was almost impenetrable.

There was one really cool spade with a point end and saw edges! Paul Kelly put it to good use and managed to make good progress on his patch.

Lucy and Max escaped with some loppers to cut back overgrowth further along the path and they missed out on an extraordinary range of conversation about ‘the longest fence in the world’ and the paint colour ‘forth bridge red’.

With a fairly decent area of border cleared, the team moved onto bark chipping, armed with only two wheelbarrows and a lot of leaf grabbers.

21 seconds to go!

They were being chucked out of the park because the gatekeeper needed to lock up, but not before Bec and Lucy completed an amazing jigsaw of getting all the tools and the two wheelbarrows back in the metal tool shed.

Er.. one of those is mine and I need it back - Adi

Let’s hope for some rain and softer ground next time!

Meanwhile a team of 13 ran to Danesgate School. Jackie and Carl joined us at the task, making the team 15 strong.

Some of us were familiar with the location as we have been here before on three community mission. Today we were determined to complete what we have started back in April, namley remove every remaining bit of the invasive grass and other unwanted weeds and make space for new plants.

Guess what, the ground was hard here too...

Be careful not to dig into the electric wire - Debbie the task owner

To be on the safe side Ros, Cara, Jenna and Abi opted for a selection of trowels as oppose to forks and went on weeding along the paving slabs.

Barbara and Laura wielded a fork each and focused on the bit of the garden close the the school wall and well away from the illuminated path.

Rich, Stuart, Vicky and Izzie dug and pulled at the weeds by the wooden fence and the rest of us worked around the edges.

About 20 minutes into the task the ton bag was looking like full and Stuart stepped in. With Leanne's and Carl's assistance he demonstrated very effective compaction technique which involved jumping on top of the green stuff to make space for more.

We are an efficient bunch and Michal, Louise and Carl even found time to list the next bench marking task on the website.

With all the unwanted roots and weeds removed and the landscape fabric expertly laid Debbie opened the remote controlled gate and bid us farewell.

Back at the base and with various degree of eagerness we did few fun exercises including walking lunges, spiderman walk, duck walks, crab walk and backward walking lunges, before heading to the Ackhorne for the traditional after run social.

Next week we are all going to Hull Road Park.