Measure twice, dig once

It took us a weekend task and a group run to rip the paving slabs off the surface of Jerome Allotments, a place sentenced to become yet another bunch of tower blocks in Acton. GoodGymers are the virtuosos of destruction, aren't they? What about construction? We had proven to Romina from Cultivate London that we can build stuff too, so she trusted that we can lay the slabs we had salvaged in a different location. How did it go?

Today's team had a nice balance of runners and cyclists. Annabel and guests from our neighbouring GoodGyms, Divya and Michelle, came to the task on their bikes, while runners Christos, Kash and Sevan enjoyed looping on a path around Ealing Common before making it to Popesfield Allotments.

The evening was bright, and Romina was enthusiastic about seeing the GoodGym engineering in action. The objective was to lay one row of paving slabs under the gate to Cultivate's plant nursery at the allotment. Sounds easy?

Here's the GoodGym Ealing slab-laying technique:

1. Measure the width of the gate
   
2. Measure the slabs (60x60 cm and 60x90 cm options)
   
3. Start digging the ground under the gate
   
4. Conclude that 6 people digging is too many
   
5. Let two team members fill bags with gravel for later
   
6. Keep digging
   
7. Measure the hole for the slabs
   
8. Make the hole wider
   
9. Throw some gravel into the hole
   
10. Level it
    
11. Throw some sand into the hole
    
12. Level it
    
13. Try out a slab and conclude it's not level
    
14. (ok, this one is important: if you are going to do it right, don't miss this - even if you feel you messed up the previous steps, just do this one) Get Michelle to do the Irish stepdance on the sand
15. Try out the slab again and marvel at the precision
    
16. Repeat steps 9-16 for other slabs

In a perfect world, the process would end there. But we don't live there. We live in a fun world! And there is always more fun to break the routine.

1. Switch on the floodlight
   
2. Let Romina notice that the slabs had been laid the other way around
   
3. Flip the slabs

In those 20 easy steps, we laid a row of slabs - and the most of them were even even! Romina appreciated our work ethic and drive to get the job done.

Thanks a lot for your help guys, you work always very hard and do always your best, we are lucky to have you working with us 🤗 - Romina

Next week we will be turning into interior (or shall I say - exterior?) designers to furnish the Transition Garden in Lammas Enclosure. Come and join us!