Let the chips fall where they may I hear them say. At the end of the day we made our way

To Totterdown to dig a hole That was the goal

No hole to dig It was already quite big

Chipping was laid Water was sprayed

Trees in the ground That’s where they’re found

Soil was shifted Our spirits lifted

Brambles trimmed on the bank, what rhymes with bank? I've drawn a blank...

The task was done That was fun 🙂

It was lovely and summery when we met at Queens Square, welcoming Will and Osama to their first ever group run plus Ryan and Ruben back for their second.

The 8 runners set off, led by Richard B who bravely made sure there was some health and safety to go with the pick axe we were trusted with and remembered to take a before photo - thank you!

The 3 walkers were hot on their heels and really impressed with the pond digging as they set about distributing woodchip to the paths and bricks artistically laid around the planted areas otherwise lost among the tall grass - well done, Jason.

Caroline and Valè joined our four newest GoodGymmers shifting the soil, stones and bricks out of the newly designated pond area after Jordan had made short work of pick-axing the somehow-still-dry ground to loosen it up and make the mounds for landscaping.

Two good reasons for tidying up were to get out of the rain and to eat lovely cake and admire all the hard work.

Richard G and Melanie got totally soaked on the walk back despite Richard's very big umbrella.

Well done, everyone - I'm pretty sure the pond would be full by now with this rain if we'd had a pond liner!

Blue sky and sunshine for the 12 GoodGymmers who braved the hill up the Totterdown, making the mostbof the Banana (Benene, Binini,Bonono, Bununu, just for Frances) Bridge before it, too, closes for a couple of years to be fixed.

A local group is looking after some green spaces and making them more inviting, including this one (not the actual orchard but still technically an irchard as it has five fruit-like trees) that needed some woodchip moving from a big pile to start creating a winding path, hindweed to pull and fruit trees (what with it being an orchard) to water.

Riya, on her first good deed, mastered shovelling, raking and the all-important GoodGym proficiency test for wheelbarrowing after revealing she'd never tried any of then before - great work!

The runners, led by Vaguely Northern Darren and backmarked by Caroline, who was backmarked by 50-good-deeder Caroline, had already gotten to grips with the woodchip path-laying by the time the walkers arrived so Richard and Frances joined Melanie in trying to pull up the bindweed without pullout out, nor falling down, the bankside. Somehow Ed joined the path gang although he'd walked and defected to the running group for the return leg (where Marianne's 50th good deed cake was waiting - delicious!).

Darren took some lovely photos in the sunshine and if you can see through the glorious glare of the sun, Tom, Gareth and Freya were all hard at work casting long shadows.

Soon we'd weeded and pathed and were on our way back down the hill for tea, cake (and Ed's burger), cider and a lot of nonsense chattering about skiing chickens and Mr T(-pot). All pretty standard stuff.

Same tine next week?