Now most things in the garden I can do on my own, but every now and then I need some help. Today was one of those days.

The day was cold, but sunny, so we all put on lots of layers and out wellies and went to shovel 5 tonnes of soil into the raised beds. It’s been nearly three years since they’ve been up and the soil has settled quite a bit so needs topping up.

Because we’d had lots and lots and lots of rain, as well as some snow since it was all delivered on Thursday, it was all very wet and soggy. This made it all very heavy to shovel out into a wheelbarrow and move. Plus the more we walked on the grass, the muddier it became. I’m not showing you what it looks like as I’m rather embarrassed, but it’ll recover very quickly, grass always does.

We started a little after 10.30am and we all had a job to do. Emily and I started to fill the smaller beds first, while Kai, Mark and George swapped round the raking, and moving soil into the large beds. We all found our jobs and got on with it.

We broke for a drink and a nibble about 11.30am once we’d done a couple of bags, then carried on and finished the other three bags before lunch. Everyone was happy to help, well a bit of exercise never hurt anyone did it. They were all happy to help, although Mark doesn’t look very happy in the photo, but he was, I promise you.

Before lunch we all had showers….not together I might add, that would be really weird. Some of us put our pj’s on, and others some clean clothes. Hey look it’s a Sunday, we weren’t going out anywhere, no one was coming round, and we’d been working very hard all morning.

Some of the family complained of a few aches the following day, but nothing too bad. I think it’s the most strenuous exercise most of them had done for a while. For me, just another day in the garden.

The beds aren’t quite full yet, so I’ll need to order another 5 tonnes in about a months time, (must get it in before the end of the financial year), but hopefully it’ll be drier then and will be much easier to shovel.

Here’s a time lapse for you to watch. KaiPie filmed this, none of us have never walked so fast.