The Root Of All Heave'l

It was a West Country bonanza and international extravaganza today as GoodGym Bristol, Bath and Cardiff joined forces as a GoodGym BBC to hit the streets and do some good.

It was great to welcome Lady Steph of GoodGym Bath and GoodGym's Princes and Princesses of Wales - Ben, Mikey, Lucy, Aimee, together with Ben's sister, Dee (now residing in Bristol) who had come along for her first GoodGym run.

Todays task was a return to the Malago Greenway to continue our work with Raluca and her band of volunteers as they work towards developing a Berry Maze on a plot of land that was rather unloved and originally covered in brambles and litter. So far we have been helping to clear the area of litter and debris, rocks and slabs and the idea today was to pop along and help to spread some mulch to the pathways of the maze.

Enjoying a leisurely and chatty morning run out to our destination, with Ben out front snapping some action shots as we headed along the greenway, we arrived to find the area largely transformed from when we had first become involved on the project, although it was clear that there was still much to do before we could start to spread the mulch.

Having cleared the ground of slabs two weeks ago so that this could be ploughed, and then going back last Tuesday to clear some more rocks that the plough had dug up, another problem had been discovered - Roots! And lots of them!

Some had been brought to the surface, whilst others were deep rooted so and sos, and so we were needed to help clear these before the mulching could commence.

Thankfully, with our larger than normal sized Saturday number and having an hour to spend on the task, we not only got a lot of the evil roots up and managed to smooth out some of the pathways, but we were also able to start barrowing across some of the mulch to spread across the pathways but also some gravel that was needed at the top end of the huge concrete slab within the maze.

There is still much to be done and it is evident that our help here is invaluable, so much so that we are planning to send a small party of runners over on Tuesday evening to provide some further assistance, which will be much appreciated.

Heading back to town, it seemed that the pace was a little to leisurely for some as Ben and Matt battled out a sprint across Bristol Bridge and took those wanting to up their pace at a faster lick back to base.

It was fabulous to see so many of you come and join in the fun today, it made such a difference on such a big project and it'll be brilliant to see the finished version when this is finally completed - thank you to everyone who came, whether local or travelling from further afield, I know it is much appreciated.

And many thanks to Chris and Steph for backmarking.

See you all again soon!