It was great to see Mr M again as we’d done a few gardening tasks for him last year, and even better to be joined by Marianne who’d hot peddled over from parkrun to help too.

We learned last year that Mr M has written a few novels which helps with his mental wellbeing and he delighted in telling us that his latest tome is in the editing stage and may be his longest yet. He was evidently very pleased with it.

Our task was to improve his mental wellbeing further by giving the grass the first cut of the year and cut back the bushes and brambles to clear his pathway and borders.

As always, Mr M popped out half way through our session to offer a most welcome cup of tea and we then carried on to cut back as much as we could, filling his green bin and adding to the garden waste pile in a designated part of the garden.

A pleasure as always to help this lovely gentleman 😊

“Cinéma vérité is a documentary filmmaking style emphasizing realism and immediacy, aiming to capture everyday life with minimal intervention” - well I guess that sums things up but with a Cinnabar moth. This probably won’t make much sense if you are reading this (there was a guy filming us too though, well Ed, but us too)… anyway. Thanks for the added culture Marianne!

Lots of cutting, weeding and snipping was done on a beautiful evening. A Cinnabar moth (see excellent photo by Frances), bees (ditto) and a mullein (needs a fact check) were spotted. Figs anyone? This has been a bit of wild ride of a report but hopefully everyone enjoyed themselves. Here is a story to complete the weirdness:

The Humble Wheelbarrow

It was a late summer morning and the last of the dew was relinquishing its grasp on the ground. All across the city people were waking from their short but much needed slumber and getting ready for their busy days ahead. One place in the city was going to be very busy this particular day. The community farm had just had a fresh delivery of manure that needed spreading and the tools were eagerly vying for the chance to show what they could do.

The time of the delivery arrived and the tools set to work...

The shovel, full of bravado set to work at great pace carrying the manure the large distance from the pile where it was delivered to the beds. The trowels, forming a chain passed the manure from trowel to trowel and the pitch fork drove into the pile with great gusto taking huge swathes of manure with it. An old lawn edger sat in the corner watching the flurry of activity with his friend the wheelbarrow. "You should have a go" the edger said to the wheelbarrow, "you are perfect for the job". "No no, they look like they know what they are doing I don't want to get in the way" the wheelbarrow replied.

And so the tools continued through the day, each showing how they could do it better than the other but the pile of manure was still there. Late afternoon approached and the tools were starting to flag. The edger, sad at what he was seeing decided to ask again, "you would be great at that, go on". Once again the wheelbarrow said with a sigh, "I'm not as important as those other tools, I'd just make a mess of it".

Late afternoon became early evening and the other tools, exhausted, decided they were never going to get this all done in time. Seeing the wheelbarrow looking sad in the corner they decided to act. The shovel, seen by the group as the leader approached the wheelbarrow. "In our haste to show what we can do we didn't ask if you wanted to help, would you help us finish the task?", the shovel said with great confidence. "You want my help? But you are all working so hard I don't know what I could add", the wheelbarrow said with great surprise. "You are the perfect choice for the task and we would love to have you help", replied the shovel.

And so full of a new found confidence the humble wheelbarrow helped out. The shovel filled the wheelbarrow, the wheelbarrow moved the manure to the beds and tipped it for the trowels and pitch fork to spread the manure. Before the day was done the task was complete. The tools cleaned themselves off and with a sense of pride retired to the shed overnight. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.

By Richard Giddings.

Take That Emmaus reorganisation!

A huge number of Bristol GoodGymmers took to the task of moving the big furniture to the ground floor of the shop which was already dull of the bric-a-brac that was going upstairs in the shop which was already full of the furniture going to the downstairs of the shop - a full-on Tetris challenge to create some space to start the manoeuvres.

The smaller items started being carried upstairs whilst the lift was used for the bigger items, although the lift seemed slower than lugging things up or down the stairs so it wasn't long before some much chunkier furniture was being carefully manhandled around the bannisters.

Fortunately, there was also a lot of chat to catch up on with GoodGymmers who'd not seen each other for a while making good use of the "lift waiting" time, springing into action like coiled springs when the ding of the lift warned that the door was soon to open with mystery objects and GoodGymmers inside.

The temperature increased with each lift-load being carefully tessellated into gaps to keep some floor space clear and our 50-minutes was soon up with a lot already moved (and a task for the Emmaus team tomorrow to find a lay-out that works for them).

We made sure two of the sofas were accessible for our end-of-task photo before heading off with many joining GoodGym Eats at Crispy Dosa, moving even more furniture around to have a big enough table for our lovely group.

From shifting sofas to Crispy Dosas - the crispiest dosas on Earth!