Roll Up! Roll Up! Weed all about it!

Weed a treat in store on this week's Group Run (grooooaaan)...a longer run than we've done for a few weeks, some beautiful evening sunshine, and exploring a corner of Oxford that most hadn't visited before.

It's been a few weeks since we did group introductions, so with new people joining us all time it was definitely time to make sure everyone knew each other. Garland of Joy was awarded to Julia on the occasion of her 24th Good Deed (random number, as we missed the 21st!). Welcome to Laura and Miao, and welcome back to your 2nd run Faruk and Mark. It isn't easy to walk into a room of people you don't know yet and try something new, so thank you for plucking up the courage to give Goodgym a try!

This Wednesday's Group Run was to help OxGrow at Hogacre Common. OxGrow have a lovely community garden there, tucked away on the otherside of the railway line, where they grow lots of fruit, vegetables, and herbs. The garden is run by volunteers, and vegetables are donated to food banks in Oxford and the community cafe next to the garden, as well as being given to volunteers as a reward for their hard work.

2 miles of running over Magdalen Bridge, through Christchurch Meadows, and along past the South Oxford Adventure Playground took us to the edge of Hogacre EcoPark. Popping out of the tree line, we introduced ourselves to Simon, and were treated to a mini-tour of the community garden, getting a taste of fresh tomatoes as well as the (slightly less local, but highly appreciated) biscuits he'd kindly provided for us hungry runners.

We do love a task owner that provides water and snacks - it's a sure fire way to our hearts!

Our task for the evening was to weed and dig over a couple of beds which hadn't been used this year to get them ready for planting up with next year's crop. The beds were full of thistles, dry grass, and dried poppy heads, so we gloved up and got to work pulling out the less tenacious of the plants. Once weed pulled out the easier stuff (sorry, couldn't resist) it was time to tool up with forks and spades and get digging to remove the wilier roots. With half an eye on the sun dropping towards the horizon, and a determination to get the task done, there was some speed digging and plenty of dashes to and fro to the compost heap with armfuls of dried up weeds before we had to call time on the task. Buried treasures found: last year's potatoes, and jerusalem artichokes. Stepping back to look at what we had achieved we were pleased to see weed (last one, I promise) cleared both beds and dug them over pretty thoroughly.

Good work team!

After a few more biscuits (we'd worked up an appetite), some raspberries off the canes, and accepting a bag of treats from the garden, we had to go before we lost all the daylight.

Our run back to base was a particularly lovely one, taking us along trails and over the reservoir, with the sunset lighting up everything in shades of gold and pink. Picking up the Thames Path to Donnington Bridge we surprised random members of the public with a human archway to run through (fast becoming a new Goodgym Oxford tradition), before fartleking our way along the lamp posts of Meadow Lane.

There's nothing quite as lovely as a sunset run.