It was a warm sunny morning when we arrived in St Lawrence park to see what fun jobs Mike, the task owner, had instore for us. Todays job was on the football pitch / basketball court, cutting back the over grown edges to improve the pitch for anyone in the local community playing on it. We also wanted to uncover a drain to stop part of the pitch flooding in bad weather.

In some places grass and weeds were growing more than a meter onto the tarmac pitch. We used a border shade to cut lines into the grass just above the edge and cut the grass into slices. We then used shovels to dig out the grass slices from the edges of the football pitch and place them in Mike’s truck and move them elsewhere in the park. Andrew and Paul managed to pull and roll big sections of the grass like carpets. We managed to dig out the grass from over the first drain in one corner of the pitch and then Andrew found a second drain in the opposite corner.

After an hour working hard in the sun, everyone was getting hot and tired, so it was declared tea break time. Andrew had brought cookies and Mike had brought strawberries, so we tucked into a little picnic on the grass. We all loved the little tin mugs Mike had brought. After the break we decided to go start work on the goal at the other end of the pitch so that both goals were now tidied up. This end wasn’t as badly over grown but it was quite dry which made getting the grass shovelled out harder.

A man came over to tell us what a good job we were doing and that it was great because a lot of people used the football pitch / basketball court. His dog took a shining to Paul and started following him around! Paul, Miranda and Amy stroked the dog and he was in dog heaven with all the attention. His other dog had a lick at our left-over biscuits.

The middle edges still need a bit of work, maybe next time when we are back on the 27th of July, but both the ends with the goals look so much tidier. On the way out of the park we also went to look at the flowers we planted a couple of months ago which are coming along nicely.

Afterwards a few of us went to Proven Goods Co doughnut shop (which is dangerously close to St Lawrence Park!) and had some delicious doughnuts, we figured we deserved them after all the hard graft! Mike estimated we moved 3 tons of grass and soil today! GoodGym 3 - over grown pitch 0.