Today we were helping Swanswell Medical Centre work on their allotment. It is going to be a place where patients can come to socialise, exercise and just generally build a little community, but there is a lot of work to be done before we get to that point!

When we went to look at the area a few weeks ago, we saw that we were going to need some equipment to help us out. Luckily after a plea for help, we were able to get our hands on many gardening forks, rakes, strimmers and even a machete or two!

Leaving the staff from the Medical Centre to deal with the really heavy duty equipment (as they were definitely the ones with the skills) Rachel, Chris, Rob, Meera and Lillian set about tidying all the cut grass and brambles into the compost bin. At one point Rob uncovered a path that clearly hadn't been seen in years and Chris took on the very important job of squashing down the overflowing compost heap.

It looked like it was going to be a two day job, but with so many volunteers working together, we had it cleared within two hours. The next step is to come back with a rotovator and lay down a membrane to stop the weeds coming back. This is going to be a long project, but we made so much progress in one morning that we should see startling results very soon!