It's finally spring isn't it? What a glorious day of sunshine and actual warmth we had today as six GoodGymmers ventured over to Bathampton. And it was a classic mission too, helping the National Trust who have acquired a large stretch of land from the edges of Batheaston all the way to Morrisons in town.

Sarah, our National Trust Supervisor for the day, greeted us after a short walk from The George Inn. Onwards with vigour went Ruth, Art, Aaron, Emily, Meyrick and Kam, filled with the joys of approaching summer and (lets be honest), this was T-Shirt weather for the first time in an age.

Sarah split us up into two groups. We were all to work in a series of fields that, Sarah explained, were still owned by the National Trust but had a tenant farmer (they were the farmer's sheep not the National Trust's).

Group one set about moving piles of woodchip from where the had been produced from the removed remains of unwanted brambles and other foliage. Group two were tasked with removing the remains of an old fence that had been replaced, but was proving to be stubborn in its attempt to persist alongside it successor.

By the time we'd finished, all posts (metal and wood) as well as the associated tangle of barbed wire that had a life of its own, were history. One particularly obstinate metal rod whose removal we were beginning to thing impossible, was removed with seconds to spare.

Job done, again. We then retired to The George for a drink and a chat.

This task took place in the field where the Bath Skyline Parkrun starts and finishes. Which is quite handy as it started at 10am on Saturday morning - allowing Jane and Meyrick to do a quite 5km and then totally not have to travel very far to get in a GoodGym mission. The ideal Saturday morning win-win scenario!

Our task was to sow wildflower seeds. We each got given a bucket of seed and a digging implement and were sent off in an area of the field, with instructions to just wander around and plant the seed randomly within the boundary of our allotted area.

Wandering around randomly is totally within our skillset!

It was a lovely, unseasonably warm, sunny morning. And keep an eye out on a similar day in May or June-ish of next year where the results of our morning's work should come in to flower. Lovely stuff.

Five GoodGymers swapped their Saturday morning lie in this week for a new challenge working alongside the National Trust to build a natural, living hedge! Andy and I met slightly earlier to follow Meyrick on a short 3km run up the hill from Cleveland Walk to the task location on the Bath Skyline. This was a tough but rewarding workout to start the weekend off!

Once the three of us had successfully reached the summit and arrived at the Skyline location we were joined by Ellie and Emily. We were tasked with continuing to construct a natural, living hedge which provides a sustainable and friendly habitat for local wildlife such as small birds and removes the need for other fencing.

Following a handy demonstration from the super friendly National Trust ranger on how to use a billhook and how to effectively cut the trees so that they could collapse in the correct way without splintering, we split into two groups and got to work on extending the hedge. Even with a small group of us and not too much time, we were able to make noticeable progress, and it will be nice to return in a few weeks to see how the hedge has continued to grow since!

Today’s group run took us to the Skyline path to help lay some hedges.

Unfortunately, owing to some communication difficulties, we didn’t get to do any hedges today.

Undaunted, we turned those frowns upside-down (evidence: see animated slide show at the top of this page), and took lots of secondary benefits from today's activity anyway. We went for a nice walk instead, and picked up [a modest quantity of] litter along the way.

Old friends

On the way home I stopped for a coffee, and bumped into erstwhile Bath GoodGymer, Rob. As a result Rob has now signed up for Tuesday’s training run, on a if-he-can-find-time basis. Might see you there.. 😀

New friends

A warm welcome to first-timers Katherine and Isabelle. It was great to have you along, and fair play to volunteering to run up that massive hill as your first ever GoodGym interaction, Isabelle 👍

A bunch of us headed over to the slopes down below Sham Castle to help with some grounds maintenance to help the local wildlife.

We met with our contact from the National Trust, Joe, who is responsible for maintaining much of the land around Claverton Down. He explained that a large area of brambles had recently been cut back and that our job was to rake the cuttings into piles and then use pitchforks to transfer those into bigger heaps to leave the area clear both for cattle to graze and also to aid the growth of wild flowers, which in turn encourages birds.

We set about the task with our legendary GoodGym efficiency which meant that Joe had time to show us around the slopes a bit and talk about some of the difficulties the ancient woodlands are facing, plus some interesting ear-like fungal growths (insert he’s a “fun guy” joke here...)

At the end of the task James took the opportunity to go and have a look at Sham Castle and discover the two-dimensional hoax of our secret Bathonian in-joke!

Five GoodGym runners headed out early on a sunny (but chilly) Sunday morning to meet Joe from the National Trust on the beautiful Bath skyline walk.

Due to the heavy increase in walkers along the route over the past few months, some of the heavily trodden public footpaths became public mud-baths during the winter. Joe needed our help with creating a gravel path entering one of the fields to provide a solid surface for future walks.

The path we built will be along the Park Run route when it returns in the coming months so it was important to get the path ready for the runners!

The team used a variety of tools to dig the trench, shift the gravel into place and flatten it out and just under 2 hours of grafting later, the path was complete!

It was great to welcome Meyrick to his first GoodGym task! We wouldn’t have finished the path without him and hope to see him join another task soon.