Mr M had asked us to help plant some bulbs in his garden as he is now unable to do this since having his leg amputated last year and it would allow him to see more than his concrete ramp outside his door. Maxine and Jo headed there after Southsea Parkrun and a cheeky cinnamon bun and coffee to build up our energy for this task at hand.

Mr M was very happy to see us and kindly offered us a drink before we started which we kindly declined and was so thankful that we volunteer and perform tasks such as this. He thought it was amazing that we turn up, do our task and leave. Mr M wanted us to weed the garden and plant some bulbs that he had as the garden hadn’t been looked after before he moved there a year ago and the ramp had only recently been installed. We talked to Mr M about how Goodgym came about as he was very interested to hear how this started. We also told him how long we’d been going in Portsmouth.

Blister ing time

Maxine took one side of the garden and Jo the other, thanks to the warm weather the ground was very hard to get the weeds out but we managed and bagged up the weeds we had pulled out. The next task we had was to use a trowel and small fork to dig up the soil in the garden and turn it over. It was hard going and we both worked up a sweat on such a glorious day. Jo got a blister on her hand through digging with the trowel and wearing gloves.

Maxine selected the bulbs that we were to plant and we left some back for Mr M as he was going to give these to someone else for their window box. Both of us aren’t too green fingered some tried to plant the bulbs in the same place on each side. We hope we’ve planted them correctly and Mr M said he would love to send some photos when they’ve come through.

Once the bulbs were planted we swept up his garden and removed any rubbish that had blown in, Maxine then watered the ground where we had planted the bulbs and we hope by spring it will be ‘blooming lovely’.

Before we left Mr M said that what we had done in an hour was amazing and the difference the cleaning and weeding had meant he would enjoy sitting out in his garden. We said our goodbyes and then headed back home to enjoy our Bank Holiday weekend. Mission accomplished.