Four Reddies and a ‘Funeral’

Saturday morning saw four GoodGym'ers join Simon for a return visit the ever enthusiastic Glynis at Penhill Haven. Our mission, should we accept it, to hump and dump, what else!

‘Safety First’ Simon, Gina and Teresa made their way across Swindon from parkrun at Lydiard Park, while Emily and Mike took a bike ride for our 11am rendezvous.

As usual, Glynis had a list of jobs longer than your arm, that seemed to grow by the minute!

Going into the Haven, we were greeted by a wash of colour from the wild flowers sown earlier in the year. Really is great to see results of everyone’s hard work over the last year.

Our first job, move a four-seater concrete bench around to the front of the adjacent Community Centre for the locals to enjoy, under the watchful eye of CCTV.

We could just about lift the bench on its end, so decided to load it onto the back of Simon’s pick-up truck and carefully drive around to the Community Centre. Once loaded Simon slowly moved off with the others walking behind keeping everything in order. It wasn’t long before laughter could be heard, soon everyone was in fits of laughter as references to looking like a funeral procession were heard. There was only one thing to do, find Chopin’s Funeral March on YouTube and blast it from the Stereo. Some odd looks came our way, but lets face it...

only GoodGym'ers can get away with driving through Penhill with a black pick-up truck blaring the Funeral March at full volume on a Saturday afternoon!

Bench in position, it was time to relocate the raised planters. Luckily they did not need much persuasion to come out. With a few minor repairs, the planters were soon round at the Community Centre. Teresa and Gina did a great job rescuing Rhubarb, Strawberries, Onions and Rosemary. Don’t worry, they made sure she got home safely.

While Simon rebuilt the damaged the damaged Insect Hotels, Mike and Emily spread compost for future wild flower planting!

We humped and dumped our way through another fantastic task at the Haven and we look forward to returning soon.

Interested in coming along to another Community Mission? Check out our next one here; we will be on the red paint station at Run the Rainbow at Lydiard Park on Saturday 14th September. It's guaranteed to be fun and one not to be missed!