This afternoon, when the arb contractor dumped a mountain of wood chip in the car park in front of our community garden, the sky was leaden and it was pouring with rain. Everyone else on my estate was dry indoors, and I felt pretty miserable as I started shoveling the chippings into a barrow on my own...but within ten minutes the rain had stopped, the sun was out, and two of my neighbours had come down to help. That's April for you. Then Patrick from Good Gym jogged up (litterally), and between the four of us we had it shifted in an hour and a half. After sweeping the last of the wood chip from the car park, he jogged away... What a brilliant idea Good Gym is -- putting all that energy to good use, instead of plodding soullessly on a running machine in a sweaty gym...

The wood chip looks so much nicer than the tarmac, it should keep the weeds down, and give the slugs and snails a bit of a bumpy ride too, hopefully...