Wildflowers At Stake, We Weren't Stumped!

A not-so-dirty dozen GoodGymmers logged a 4 km run to Victoria Park to help protect some wildflower beds.

A case of all's well that ends well today, as we met and warmed up at Roll For The Soul, before heading over to finish what we started last week.

Sarah had kindly picked up the gloves which would be needed today, not because the job was going to messy, but to try to protect hands from hammers and mallets missing their target.

On arrival at Victoria Park, we met up with the wonderful Alex from the Victoria Park Wildlife Group, who had managed to borrow a variety of hammers and mallets from the local community and the Avon Wildlife Trust, in order that we could put to use the stakes that we had cut from the woods last week.

Our task was to use the stakes to make borders to protect three wildflower beds from being mown down by the grass cutters by bashing these in a line into the ground.

This was easier said than done however as the recent spell of hot dry weather had made the ground really hard, making it very difficult to penetrate much more than the surface with very blunt stakes.

Splitting into 3 teams, Chris, Dom, Paul and Deb seemed to be using a technique of synchronicity (check out Deb's video on facebook and WhatsApp to see for yourself) and making a pointy end to the stake with a malllet.

The team of Sarah, Chloe and David seemed to just manage with sheer brute force - unless I was missing something subtle in their mastery of the task!

Ceri, Julia, Andrew and Nick were having much less joy up by the tennis courts where the ground was rock solid and no amount of hammering or cunning would do. But did they give up? Not a bit of it! Nik and Andrew sped off to Windmill Hill City Farm who kindly provided a spade and trowel, whilst Alex headed home to pick up a fork, spade and trowel which the group then put to amazing use and in no time at all had managed to dig holes big enough for the stakes and repack and water the soil to make the stakes sturdy enough.

In the meantime Alex was showing me the Bat App on her phone on which she had recorded the activity and conversations (do bats have conversations?) of the bats in the part of the park where the long grass and trees are. Apparently, the dark walkway encourages them to travel over from their home in Arnos Vale for a bit of a nighttime shindig in the park - nice! Not only can this App detect and record the bats, it can also tell what breed of bats they are - amazing!

Anyway, I digress! Needless to say it did all end well and we staked our Victorias claim - picking ourselves up for the run home with a Penguin bar kindly provided by Alex.

Dropping off the tools and leftover stakes at the yard in the park, whilst Nik and Andrew returned theirs to the farm, we bid adieu to Alex and her lovely dog, Amber (such a cutie!) and returned to base.

This was a task that could have stumped us, but you guys came through and hammered it!

Top work everyone!

See you next time!