Michal arrived early, very well equipped with various tools and bits of wood leftover from his home DIY project. The rest of us (some of us fresh from a previous mission) soon joined him in the sunshine and made our way to the garden area at the rear of Acomb library. Unfortunately this area was recently vandalised and a lovely memorial bench and one of the raised beds were badly damaged.

We managed to remove some of the loose sides of the bed and took out the more rotten pieces, removing various large bolts and nails, along with some of the soil. Then we managed to piece it back together using some spare pieces of wood that we trimmed to the correct size, various brackets (one of which we had to fetch back out of the waste bin after much conversation as to whether we should keep it or not!), nails, screws and pieces of wood from the damaged bench (which sadly was not salvageable). We used some more slats from the bench to brace part of the raised bed on the other side to stabilise another loose piece that was threatening to collapse.

The damaged bench had a lovely inscription in memory of a City of York Council colleague. Fortunately the inscription was mostly intact so Michal (who also works for the council) said he would take it away with him so that he can figure out a way that it can be re-mounted/displayed in some other form. We look forward to seeing what he comes up with!

After a quick tidy up to get rid of all the bits of loose and rotten wood we left the area looking much neater and cared for and the raised bed repaired and safe from falling apart. The library staff kindly offered us some refreshments (as they have a great café on site) and we enjoyed them sat outside in the sunshine where we could admire our handiwork. We even managed to join the GG central team 1pm plank session!