On the 11th Day of the 11th Month, at the 11th Hour in 2017 GoodGym Bristol assembled for a group run. Firstly we marked the Armistice with a two minutes silence in sight of the Bristol Cenotaph. Then after an introduction from Matt, including welcoming Darren, and telling the story of Welly and Alex’s wedding due to GG weeding, we set off to the task – this was mainly padding for time as the GG Weather window was late and the rain was still falling initially.

After the short run to Windmill City farm, we were greeted by Beth, who provided a short introduction and she gave us three challenges which needed us to split into teams.

Plot 12 is usually tended to by a local school, but it needed some work to remove all the bindweed roots and stones so the children have a great start to learning about gardening and the best soil quality possible. So Team Plot 12 set to work.

A Poly tunnel had been taken down and they realised the polythene had been buried to secure it, sadly this makes drainage a serious problem so it was decided the plastic must be dug up and removed, so it was Team Trench's mission to dig for PVC, with spade, mattock and GoodGym grit.

Leaf mulch makes an amazing compost to start new seeds and plants, so with the recent windy weather had generated a lot of leaves that needed to be collected, Tea' Leave - the Reds (Debs and Paul) took on this challenge. This gave an intriguing insight into 30 years of marriage of how to work together and accept each other’s idiosyncrasies and approaches to tasks, hopefully Welly and Alex were taking notes.

By this time Team Plot 12 had completed one side of the pond and were moving to the other side of the pond, Darren was modelling his camo wellies with pride (or was that his recent achievements at Eastville parkrun?) and Fi was modelling the muddy trainer look.

Team Trench, meanwhile had made an amazing impact of the plastic, and despite having a collapsed compost heap to attend to had removed significant amounts of the plastic removed.

With ten minutes to go, Team Leaf changed their bailiwick from leaves to tea-leaves and kindly prepared some refreshments for us all.

So the question dear reader, is did Team Trench remove the plastic? Of course they did! It did take an immense final effort from the King of the Mattock Chris Lewis, but the plastic was heaved from the ground and removed. Amazing effort Team Trench! Beth had expected to take all week to remove that plastic, so now they can get on with replacing the poly tunnel and the plants can be warm again.

Now the victorious groups went for the mug of tea and coffee and then a tour of all the animals that the farm has to offer; Goats, guinea pigs, pigs, sheep, chickens, rabbits, ducks plus some others.

Eventually Matt managed to round the team up and it was time to go, so we set off back to Roll for the Soul, for a well-earned lunch, post stretch.

Big thanks to Matt for leading the run today, writing the report and providing the pix - top effort sir!

Another trip down the Malago Greenway today to continue our work with the Malago Greenway Berry Maze volunteer group who are making real progress with the development of a maze that will be made out of 16 different varieties of berry plants.

We've played a big part in this project so far, helping to clear the location of rocks and roots, spreading mulch and gravel over the paths, and today was designed to be the last tidy up of the area before the berries get planted (or should that be berried?) as well as helping to paint the giant slab to the lovely design prepared by Harry, a young student at the local primary school.

There were eight of us on hand to, er, lend a hand today, including Vanessa, who had packed her bag for all eventualities, but definitely had all the bases covered when in came to the painting task ahead. Also joining us for the first time was Krysia, who decided to cycle over to the site - thanks for coming along and getting stuck in Krysia!

Arriving at the site we were greeted by the a-maze-ing Raluca, who has guided us through the project all the way, and her team of volunteers, who were already well entrenched with the tidy up operation. We were thrilled to meet Ollie, who was in charge of the painting operation and young Harry himself who was keeping an eye on the detail, to make sure that his vision was being realised down to the last detail.

With this in mind, we selected our best painting team for the task - Caroline, Maria, Vanessa and Krysia all rising to the challenge and arming themselves with paint brushes and some very gloopy looking and very colourful paint. And off they went with steady hands and careful application, under the watchful eye of Harry.

Meanwhile, David got to work with a spade and unearthed more bricks, rocks and roots - I'm sure someone is replanting them overnight! - whilst Richard and Liam cultivated the land between the pathways with an awesome tool called a cultivator - like a long broom handle with a three pronged claw on the end. This is now officially Liam's favourite gardening tool. With me raking these patches to try and level them out the beds were really starting to look tidy by the time we were done.

Just time for Richard, Liam and myself to shift some more mulch onto the pathways (well you can never have too much mulch can you?), whilst David just went on digging (he was certainly digging it today)!

Over at the the giant slab, the girls were doing a lovely job (certainly no complaints from Harry there) and it was a real struggle to get them to down their brushes when it was time to leave - however, tempting them with cake, falafel wraps and quesadilla just about seemed to the trick and we were off on our way again.

The site is really starting to look brilliant and even with a smaller group today we were able to make a big difference - it's so good to see how this is turning out.

Thanks all for coming today and to David for backmarking once again.

There's a group run as usual on Tuesday and the chance to do a back to back double deed next Saturday. Yay!