11 Goodgymers do a lot of work at Bergholt Road Allotments for Colchester in Bloom

First off, a huge congratulations to Tav on his 2x half marathon in 2 weekends, and welcome to Nicola on her first run with us.

Colchester in Bloom have a nice large plot on Bergholt Road allotments that eventually will be used to 'overwinter' flowers. Its a brilliant spot where, you can see the high points of the town centre, as well as the low point of the train line. We met Pam, Chris and Christophe at the Allotment and they allocated the tasks they wanted doing.

Thank you to Sue Crafer and Martin Goss who loaned us some equipment for this task, however, once we got there, it was decided we didn't really need them, as our power was needed to shift and move stuff, rather than specific gardening.

In half an hour, we got a LOT done:

• We broke down pallets that will be made into a shed. Hannah, Fay and Ian loved bashing them up whilst Michelle wielded and Axe (not that useful) and held the lantern up (very useful) so the others could see!
• Moved a whole pile of about 50 paving slabs
• Move a whole pile of about 50 sleepers
• Constructed said sleepers into 3 compost piles
• Shifted 2 great big bags of compost and deposited compost into newly constructed piles
• Loaded up and shifted 8 wheelbarrow loads of grass

This was all done in the warmth and light of the wonderful bonfire that Christophe had made.

At the end of the task you could tell everyone had had fun, and Michelle was still wielding her axe! Pam, Chris and Christophe were very pleased with just how much a group of goodgymers had managed to get done in such a short space of time, and said other groups they had worked with could have taken an entire day to do all of that work.

Next week, we will be doing a litterpicking task for rivercare, and we will be having our monthly social. Make sure to join the GG Colchester Facebook group so that you can hear information about the social as it's disseminated through the week (the group is here)