I arrived early for a new task in my neighbourhood, to see locally raised World Kickboxing Champion, Kash The Flash Gill completing his free community workout in Handsworth Park. I had been asked to bring something long and pointy to put holes in the ground for planting crocus bulbs. I found a bulb planting tool in the garden and hoped it would be as fit for the task as the name suggests. I met up with another local legend, Hector (aka Mr. Handsworth) who is the other half of the double act volunteering to get the local community active, and who also has a statue in the park based on him. We made our way across the park to find the spot by the new statue, Roots and Branches, which signifies the global community of Handsworth. There we met Jenny from the Rotary Club who handed out the bulbs. We planted the bulbs around the statue, with us elders digging the holes and the kids putting the bulbs in and stamping the ground back down. The bulb planter did turn out to be very useful and one of the kickboxing exercise group did a great job of digging holes with it. Kash was full of puns and gave the title for us without charge, I think we need him for our community missions! After a couple of hours we packed up and left the bulbs to do what they do between now and spring, when hopefully they’ll turn this part of Handsworth Park Purple4Polio.

I turned this into a mini-GoodGym as I brought my children to the family session at the Community Garden in Handsworth Park. Gardener Eleanor showed us the new chalkboard which had the day’s tasks written up. They were to prepare the meadow area and to weed around the paths.

She also showed us the inspiration in a meadow guide from a magazine, before preparing us with gloves and spades. We were instructed to dig up the grass but leave the weeds for a change, because the meadow was all going to be wild plants and flowers.

We then got underway, digging up lots of grass, my eldest son enjoying putting clumps of turf on the compost, my daughter enjoying tidying the paths using a litter pick, and the littlest chasing Eleanor’s daughter around the garden.

After an hour of digging, with the wind picking up, we packed ourselves off home for some well earned lunch.