Bench knobs and spade sticks

16 Saturday superstars bravely took on two tasks in one morning, building benches and prepping flower beds for St Werburghs Community Centre AND tidying up the wonderful Easton Community Gardens!

We met outside Roll for the Soul to be briefed by newly qualified run leader Alice Whale who took the group through a little warm up and split them into two teams.

6 brave soldiers decided they'd take the plunge and head 5km with Alice to St Werburghs Community Centre whilst the more energetic souls went for team Dave to go for the longer run to Easton Community Gardens.

Team soil in the bed

On arrival at St Werburghs Community Centre the brave soldiers were met by one of the centre's lovely team who ensured we all had a fun task to keep us busy. Keen to be a part of the centre's up and coming community open day next Saturday we quickly got stuck in with one team of 3 assigned to build a picnic bench and the other team to fill two brand new flower beds with soil.

And as if by magic, as soon as team bench started to tackle the picnic bench task, the sunshine came out in full force as if to support the requirement for sunshine and picnics.

Meanwhile team soil divvied up the task between them with some using shovels to fill up buckets and the others carrying the soil down to the flowerbeds.

With both teams spurred on by the sunny support, the team smashed this task in just half an hour leaving enough time to get out the big guns and move a rather hefty bag of soil out of the way and into the corner.

Of course it wouldn't be GoodGym without a bit of silliness and the teams couldn't resist testing out the new play tunnel built by one of the other volunteers that transforms you into a beautifully illustrated insect (you'll have to look at the photos to see what I mean)!

Team Weed-in the garden

As we ran over to Easton we were concerned that the run briefing today had not included "watch out for dinosaurs!" but we managed to shoofty past this particular obstacle just outside a garden centre.

Arriving at the Easton Community Garden, one of our favourite places in the whole of Bristol, we split into two groups.

One group got stuck into digging and clearing one corner of the garden, with Sion on barrow duty, Matt on shears, Mike and David on forks and Nick (fresh from backmarking us on our run) standing guard over a plant that needed keeping amongst a group of weeds that looked a bit like flowers. I checked later and the plant was still there, whilst the weeds had disappeared - Nick obviously did not let his guard down!

Meanwhile, Sarah, Will, Charlie and I weeded the pathways around the garden to help make them look nice and tidy, putting the waste into the compost box.

Then, as it was a warm and sunny morning, we took on some water, chilled for a photo and then trundled back down to town, at a reasonable lick, stopping only to get a photo with an imposter dinosaur (we weren't fooled!) - the real one had headed off to the zoo for some lunch. Nice!

Thanks for making it such a fun run today guys, you're all brilliant. But a special big shout out to Emma who's taking part in Bristol Night Ride tonight!

And nice one Alice on your first run lead! Top stuff!