Festival (Gardens) fun, Headliner: Steps!

Nothing like a good post Parkrun (for some - well done to Aditya, Roz and Jo!) community mission to start off the weekend! For today’s task we were heading over to Festival Gardens to help the regular ‘Friends of Festival Gardens’ volunteers tidy up the main stone stairway. After congregating at St Michael’s station, we collectively managed to locate the steps in question and get cracking. Kate, Steve, Ann and Penny were already hard at work and very appreciative of some more hands to help! There were a variety of tasks to be done to give the stairway a spruce up, including de-weeding the edges, de-mossing, cutting back over hanging branches to allow easier access to the handrails and taming the ivy. The Autumn sun beaming down was a pleasant surprise given the very rainy forecast and our earlier comments about regretting not wearing more layers were quickly forgotten! However our luck eventually ran out and with 10 mins to go, the dark cloud descended as we hurried to tidy up all the trimmings and gather the tools. After a quick shelter under the trees whilst the rain/hail shower past over, we descended back to the start of the steps to admire our handy work and take the final group photo. We look forward to hopefully joining ‘The Friends of Festival Gardens’ again soon to help them continue their great work!