Barking up the Wrong Tea

The clocks have gone back and it's properly dark and cold but that didn't stop two groups of GG Yorkies from doing good!

We welcomed along two brand new runners tonight so lets give some hearty cheers to Alice and Jiachang.

Almost everyone wanted to go long tonight so Tim led a hardy crew of six to the Planet South Bank Community Garden whilst everyone else came with me to Danesmead Wood.

Tim's crew snuck through some snickleways that surprised even the seasoned pros Debs and Vicky. They popped out by St Clements Church and met Lyndall who told them the long list of tasks.

The primary task was to cut back all greenery that was overhanging the footpath round the edge of the garden. Charlotte and Beth jumped straight to it, snipping and chopping the various weeds and bushes that were encroaching.

Vicky and Debs got stuck straight with the fun task of de-teabagging the compost in the main flowerbed. A delicate task handled with great skill no doubt.

Tim and newbie Jiachang got to work weeding the flowerbeds and clearing the weeds over to the now massively overflowing compost area! The church were kind enough to provide hot chocolates to fight the cold. But Tim decided that wasn't enough so he made everyone do a few sprint repeats on the way back!

Over in the deep, dark, Danesmead Wood, there were two piles of woodchip at either end of the central path and Jude wanted us to top up the paths. She had quite specific dimensions for the width and depth of the bark too.

One team nabbed five of the six wheelbarrows so the smaller team were having to work fast with only one 'barrow, but the bigger team had a few too many people tool-less so we started a hill sprint relay to ensure everyone was always doing something, and keeping warm!

Craig took all of about five minutes to get himself covered in the evil spiky sticky plant things and nobody was willing to help him extract them given the location on his body. It's also a bit of a mystery how he brushed against them in that position.

There was some bonus massive log moving too ready for spooky storytelling in the woods and Jude had made a couple of traybakes which everyone indulged in post-task.

After a few step reps and sprints at Millennium Bridge we were welcomed back by Tim's crew and Debs was doing her best market selling for all the veggies she'd procured from the community garden.

Potato, anyone? Radishes, 3 for a pand!