This evening's GoodGymmers were rewarded with a lovely sunset as we ran and walked to Faithspace in Redcliffe to collect the tools and trolleys for the night's path laying.

Last time we'd had days of heavy rain and were glad of the light drizzle, tonight was drier and didn't the turf know it! We seemed to have found a particularly rocky patch which Marky had marked (so Marky-ed, I guess) as the next path joining the planters. There's already been lots of positive feedback about how much easier it is to get to the planters and beyond.

The gravel is a special "self-binding" type which makes for marvellous non-shedding paths and, when its been left a few weeks, a solid lump in dumpy sack.

Once the edges had been marked and knived (?), we split into ground-chiselling and gravel-chillesing teams, definitely a tough workout tonight. Many different strategies were tried with the top methods proving to be stabbing with a big fork for gravel breaking and sitting uphill and spading downhill for turf lifting (called sods, for anyone wondering). We are so creative and adaptive.

Perseverence paid off, the new path was given its preliminary stomp, catwalk-style and flavoured water was enjoyed. Laura and Vaguely Northern Darren headed off for a longer run back whilst the rest of us finished off, tidied up and took the tools back to Marky's workshop.

Top path-making, team!

An exciting wheelbarrow-based task was always going to bring Paul B to a group run and this time we were joined by fellow Paul, newcomer PaulC who had the good grace to stand next to Paul B as we went round the circle to "count in" with our names. We have a thing about trying to break the numbering thing and having name twins is a sure fire way to break it.

We were also glad to be re-joined by Laura (let me know if the T-shirt still doesn't arrive) and Valè who cant remember yet why she stopped coming over three years ago but really enjoyed being back. So that's OK then. Nik is now officially a pro as he has a handful of good deeds under his belt.

The running group set of on a harbour loop, led by Vaguely Northern Darren and backmarked by birthday boy Richard B who celebrated on his actual birthday by running the very muddy Ironwood Challenge 10K.

Meanwhile, the dependable walkers headed directly to Faithspace to join Sarah and Marky to gather tools into a shiny new trolley (no more trolley-dollying for us!) and the two all-important wheelbarrows as we had a task to tackle!

The aim was to extend the gravel paths around the planters we'd filled last year, and top up the planters with some fresh compost. So, out with the turf, in with the gravel - the runners arrived and the team split into compost loaders (into the dumpy bag in the trolley), gravel loaders into wheelbarrows and turf edgers and lifters to make space for the gravel. Top Tip 1 - we finally realised there aren't any pedestrian crossings on the harbour loop so no friendly red man to enable a catching of breath/squat and lunge practice Top Tip 2 - white spray paint doesn't show up well on wet grass in the dark - specialist edger Richard G had the genius idea to turn on the Big Lights we'd carried over

We were lucky that the excess turf could be dumped, sorry, carefully piled, into mounds to become grass seats next to the paths, but even so, two barrow loads of gravel arrived before there was space to use it so all hands switched to turf clearing so Paul B could show us all how to handle a barrow like a pro..: A fall from grace as the wheelbarrow had other ideas and instead deposited a pile of gravel onto the grass instead of the path. And a lot of giggles.

At some point it stopped raining but none of is had taken any notice of the rain in the first place.

It was action in all directions as compost and gravel arrived, empties returned and mounds grew as bare paths were made (not to be confused with bear paths - that's another week). Some highly skilled "stomping" of soil and then gravel led Sarah and Marky to mistakenly believe we knew what we were doing - you can fool all the people some of the time. Darren was (apparently) given carte-blanche to make one corner happen and decided a sweeping curve was in order. So we took it one step further to create a GoodGym mini-path for small creatures with two Gs giving us plausible deniability as he forgot what the logo looked like and the Gs are both facing the same way with straight bars. So it couldn't possibly have been us...

With a bit of compost added to a nearby heap and us not breaking the new super-duper trolley (we managed to put it back together perfectly, eh Jason and Valè?), tools were given a quick wipe on the wet grass and all taken back to Marky's workshop having turned down the offer of squash and biscuits this time as we'd spent a teeny bit longer at the task than intended...

The runners set off back to Workout the short (walkers) way and sent back news that there was speed dating at Club Haus and it was too chilly to sit outdoors what with it being February so we headed to The Brew House so Ed could order his tea/supper/dinner and we could all eat Richard B's delicious homemade lamingtons (sp?) to remind us all again it was his birthday week.

Top Tasking, Team!

Blue skies, sunshine and the red t-shirts were back on show in Bristol because Spring has sprung!

15 lovely GoodGymmers easily (hmm) sorted themselves into a waling group, a short run group led by Richard B and back-marked by Richard G and an all-the-way-round-the-flipping-harbour group led by Vaguely Northern Darren and backmarked by Clo and , which included both volunteer photographers hence the lovely photos of Bristol Harbourside. Fortunately, the walking group were very task-focused and got to Faithspace to wheel the tools to the soil which itself wanted transporting to the raised planters.

Frances was practising her beat Zen raking on the two planters we'd filled a couple of weeks ago - the torrential rain during and since had squished the topsoil a bit so we were breaking up the surface before topping up to the brim. She also turned her hand to pun creation - thank you!

The shorter runners (some of whom were actually quite tall) arrived and took up spades and shovels to start filling wheelbarrows and walking spade-loads to the nearest planters and newer members were shocked by how heavy one-tonne dumpy sacks are!

Lucas was living up to his new GG nickname of Menhoca by getting into the soil and Tula was specialising in barrow-loading and trying to lift very heavy bags.

By the time the longer runners arrived we were in full swing and working up to trying to lift the lightest of the sacks on to Marky's Dolly Trolley to speed up the process and Very Good Posture heavy lifting was put to good use.

Five GoodGymmers then headed with Marky to get forks and turn over the compost heaps in Somerset Square (which is a triangle and not in Somerset) leaving the rest to chip away with barrows and bags to the point of four full- ish planters ready for... yep, you guessed it, planting.

We packed up, Matt gave Darren a ride in the huge wheelbarrow and we traipsed off to Faithspace HQ to stash the tools, pick up the composting GoodGymmers and eat a quick caramel chocolate digestive. And then Russ produced some cookies from his bag to keep us going until we were at The Stable for April's GoodGym Eats after having stretched in Queen Square and celebrated the achievements of marathon and half-marathon successes from the last week.

Remember the extra Good Friday Good Deed at Brunswick Cemetery, with picnic, and two community missions on Saturday - you don't need to wait until next Tuesday to have this much fun again!

What a joy to be back at Redcliffe's gardening club where they've had an on-site course to build HUGE raised beds and to be back with Marky and Sarah plus the amazing Doreen.

It started dry and almost bright before becoming somewhat darker and definitely rainier as we wheeled the barrows and tools to the bags of topsoil delivered earlier and took on the challenge of getting it down to the raised beds.

With specialists established in filling barrows, running with barrows, emptying barrows and raking out contents we were a slick operation. Or maybe just slick from the rain.

As the first planter neared its limit, not-quite-so-full dumpy sacks were transferred from ground to Marky's dolly yo be sped to Planter 2 and hefted over the three-plank side for Doreen to rake the contents.

Before we knew it (not true) we had three dumpy sacks emptied (into the planters, not just randomly tipped out) and it was time to head back (the short way) via Faithspace to drop off the tools and partake of a lovely cup of squash and a biscuit then on to Workout for a drink and dry out a bit.

Great to be back!