When the Chips are Down

This evening we started by celebrating the marathon achievements of two regular Goodgymers. Nicola at her first session since completing the Manchester Marathon with a PB time; and Robin who ran, and just about survived the heat of the London Marathon yesterday and was still up for tonight's run too!

Our run tonight took us to the scene of our very first Goodgym Ipswich task - Activ Lives Peoples Community Garden. On arrival we were met by Danny who guided us through the vast expanse of gardens & allotments towards the top end of the gardens where our job was waiting.

Danny explained a bit about the work Activ Lives do and gave instructions on what was required tonight. Two jobs needed doing - to dig a hole in preparation for school children to construct the ideal stag beetle retreat, later this week. We learned from Danny that stag beetles spend most of their life underground as larvae only emerging for a few weeks to find a mate and reproduce. They love to be under soil in among rotting wood which the children would build around and in the hole in a few days time.

The second job was to clear a path around the bee keeping area of overgrown weeds and cover with fresh bark chippings - it was a long circular path and looked like a big challenge for us to complete.

Tom and Andrew took on the digging task while the rest of the team headed for the path. With exemplary team work we had a group moving through clearing weeds from both sides, and a "chipping" team moving along behind them refreshing the path with new bark.

Amazingly the whole path was completed with fresh bark chippings and looked fantastic. This despite Steve working so hard he managed to break his fork in half. We're not sure if Steve was too strong for the fork or he has Uri Geller super powers!

As the path was receiving the final barrow load of bark chips we looked across to see Andrew and Tom disappearing into the hole they were digging for the stags - literally only head and shoulders visible! All this within half hour.

It was quite a long walk to the exit back onto the road where we bid farewell to Danny... until next week when we visit another Activ Lives project. https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/helping-out-in-chantry-park-walled-garden

On the journey back we added a few lamp post intervals to spice up the run, with everyone gathering back at the Waterfront for a stretch before heading home.

A really enjoyable task for fabulous charity done :)