There Was a Real Buzz on a Swarm Night

A big welcome to Kaveh who made his debut group run last night - luckily he spotted us just before we set off! Great to have you on board and hope you enjoyed the evening.

We were heading to a new venue and task for us - Spring Road Allotments. There was some debate beforehand on whether a non-hilly route could be devised to get to Spring Road. The answer is that there probably is a non - hilly route....but where's the fun in that!

So we headed up the nearest hill taking in a circuit of Alexandra Park and another smaller elevation up to the entrance of the venue during the mile run.

We were greeted by Stephanie on arrival and taken by surprise at the scale of the impressive site, with loads of plots laid out on in terraces sloping up the steep incline. Stephanie explained our tasks which were to dig out and construct a stag beetle residence and to move lots of cut down branches to build a dead hedge. She led us up several terraces to where the cuttings had been piled. The branches and other off cuts of trees needed to be chopped into manageable sizes and transported down a level to be placed into the dead hedge.

Initially all was well with most of the team getting stuck into picking out branches and lopping them down to size before being wheelbarrowed along to Jo and Hayley who were strategically placing them all to form a long and evenly balanced hedge.

Unfortunately the team's enthusiasm was curtailed by the unfortunate discovery of a wasps nest in the pile of branches. When I say discovery it would probably be more accurate to say the wasps discovered Goodgym...... and weren't keen!

Robin and Keith were unlucky in being the first to realise these local residents weren't keen on red shirted giants trampling across their manor - and were warned off with a traditional waspish greeting. At this point we abandoned the task in hand and beat a fairly hasty retreat.

A little further down the terraces the construction of a stag beetle home was a lot calmer. The area was cleared of brambles and a small trench dug and various old pieces of wood laid down and recovered with soil. This will create a perfect environment for stag beetles that depend on old trees and rotting wood to live in and feed on.

Once this was complete we retraced our outward bound tracks, stopping in the park for a hill interval relay session - everyone loves hills sooo much! In teams of three focusing on technique of driving with arms and lifting knees. The downhill element proved to be a little challenge in itself...stopping in time to high five your partner.

An eventful evening ended with an easy short (downhill) jog back to base.