Raking the Path Less Gravelled

An intrepid team of eleven GoodGymmers took on a heavy task down at Petersham Common.

After a 3k run along the riverside and through the meadows, we arrived at the path along the common and were greeted by two ginormous sacks of gravel.

At the weekend, we had started to lay gravel down on the pathway. This was to help where it was worn down by the amount of foot and bike traffic, and also to help with flooding and water logging. At the moment we’ve been lucky with the weather, but when it rains it makes the paths very wet and boggy - not ideal for runners, walkers and cyclists heading down it!

Ken had three main roles for us today. First he was looking for two strong and hardworking individuals to take on the gravel shovelling job. JP and Gav modestly offered up their services and got to work filling up the army of empty wheelbarrows.

The second role was on wheelbarrow duty - taking the filled barrows along the pathway down to where they would need to be tipped out onto the pathway. Last but not least, we needed path clearers. This job en-trail-ed clearing what Ken referred to as ‘organic matter’. We expected the worst, however this was just a term for the mud and leaves on the pathway thankfully! Under Ken’s watchful eye, Lucy, T, Rebecca and SJ stared on barrow duty, tipping the gravel onto the path that Sam, Suze, Liz and Rosie were clearing. We swapped jobs a few times (pushing the gravel was wheely heavy) and within an impressive 45 minutes, the two tonnes had been moved onto the pathway and spread out by rake and spade across the way.

The final task at ask was to try and compact down the newly laid gravel a bit. Suze was the lucky one with the tamper, and the rest of us completed some sort of interpretive dance/regimented marching routine to stamp it down! For all our hard work, Ken had provided us with cookies to say thank you. A quick team photo and we were off again into the golden hour along the riverside and back to our respective homes.

You can see us in action in this fab reel from tonight’s task put together by Liz! https://www.instagram.com/p/Ct97dORoMTy/

And you can join in all the fun and more by joining in with some of our upcoming sessions - at the weekend we’re at the Petersham Horticultural Show, and next Monday we head to Heatham Youth Centre.