Saturday 12th August 2017
Find out about GoodGym TaskForce
Report written by Neil Armstead
For this week's mission Daryl & I met at Flirt Cafe in the Triangle in what turned out to be pretty warm weather! The task was over in Kinson so we quickly decided on a route there that would avoid too many hills (little did we know....)
Setting off from Flirt we headed down into the gardens cutting right across and onto Bourne Avenue where we were faced with our first hill - we'd planned this well! Not being quitters we shot straight up a path that was practically vertical so took a second to catch our breath at the top. From there we took a sneaky shortcut around the roaring traffic of the Wessex Way which resulted in another hill! Back on level ground it was a straight run through Meyrick Park, ducking under the security tape that was around the Proms in the Park set up and taking us backstage and out the other end. At this point it felt like another hill was due and, lucky for us, it was! We glided up and out onto Wimborne Road for our straight run down Talbot Road and onto Wallisdown Road where we encountered our final hill!!!
We arrived at Ms B's and were soon set to work weeding out in the front garden. Luckily Daryl knew which were weeds and which weren't as I frequently called out 'is this a weed??!!'The flower beds had gotten a little taken over by dandelions and other weeds so once we knew what we were pulling out we managed to clear the beds and have them looking much neater and you could really see the flowers afterwards. We then tackled the bigger weeds on the gravel underneath the windows; this would have been an all day job in its own right so we decided to concentrate on the biggest weeds and managed to get it looking much clearer.
Heading round to the back garden Ms B wanted 4 or 5 large bushes removing that were set against the back wall. We grabbed them and they came out surprisingly easily; they were covered in coriander at the bottom which gave off a strong aroma. They may have been coriander plants as you would find them outdoors - they certainly weren't like the ones you get in the supermarket! We stuck this all in the green waste bin and checked with Ms B whether there was anything else we could do for her.
Ms B asked if we would mind doing a bit more weeding on her vegetable patch; she explained she hadn't really been able to work it and it had gotten overgrown. Heading back out into the garden we found the vegetable patch and began pulling huge weeds (and the occasional potato) out. The roots on some of the weeds were ridiculously strong with one patch becoming a bit of a personal mission for us both to get it out. After attacking it with a hoe and shears we managed to rip it free, to both our quiet satisfaction...After a good 20 minutes or so we had removed the biggest weeds and it was just ready for the soil to be turned over.
We said our goodbyes to Ms B and started off on our run back to the town centre after a job well done!