We move mountains

Matt Atkins writes:The night felt cold at first, but within a minute of departing from the Memorial Recreation Grounds changing rooms our bodies warmed, and our spirits were boosted. Our destination; the Flanders Field Community Garden in East Ham. A garden in the making, a place where there is a lot of good work to be done. And a place that I already feel a special connection to having been involved with its design with Ola Rug whilst on a Permaculture Design Course we attended earlier in the year.This was just my second GoodGym run, and I'm certainly not in great shape. But I found the group pace to be comfortable as we made our way to the site.When we arrived to Flanders Fields it was David, the newly recruited community gardener, who was ready to open the gate to greet us. With his great smile he told us that we move mountains, and then gestured over to the huge "mountain" of earth that needed to be transported to a different part of the site.The floodlights were lit so we gloved up, grabbed shovels and began to fill the wheel barrows. I got stuck in and really felt the workout, even more so than the week before. Perhaps we were just filling the wheelbarrows higher than before.As we worked there was some good banter, with David pondering what a "barrow" was, and jokingly accusing Mark (our GoodGym group organiser) of slacking.We managed to shift a good haul of the soil to its new location, but there is still a lot of it to go. Never the less David showed huge appreciation for our help. We took some quick photos, said goodbye, and started the second leg of our run.We did the second leg in the same time as the first, which was good going, but not easy for me. Still, I attempted a sprint finish with the others as we reached the Memorial Recreation Grounds. We high-five-ed and did our warm down stretches. I felt slightly euphoric as I caught my breath back and cooled down on the outside bench. Another good workout, and another good job done.