In the Land of Rake the Leaves

Bucks Fizz anyone? If you’re under 30, ask your mum!

Tonight’s task took us to the magical land of the Royal Pavilion Gardens where head gardener Robert explained how the gardens were designed to reveal ‘tantalising glimpses’ of the Royal Pavilion itself, so as to make it appear even more enticing and interesting, which indeed it does!

Before we set off we welcomed back Laura for her first group run since tripping and breaking her wrist and congratulated Michael on completing the Great North Run on Sunday.

Tasks tonight included raking leaves, picking up litter, cutting back vegetation that was obscuring signage, weeding and turning the compost, which required wearing some interesting facial protection to protect from spores. Robert was very grateful for our efforts, as the garden is maintained by a small team of volunteers and it takes a hell of a lot of work to keep it looking so natural!

Task complete it was time for a 1km time trial from the pier to the playground. A couple of the newer members of the group made the big mistake of trying to keep up with Helena at the start, who absolutely stormed it to a cracking time of 3 min 10 seconds! Everybody ran a blinder tonight with several runners easily cracking 4 minutes. Well done!

A 5 minute circuit followed, then the return run to base for our monthly social. Social secretary Nipun had selected our lovely base the YHA for our get together, where we enjoyed playing foosball so much that Nipun jumped up in excitement and landed on her own ankle (hope its ok) and I uttered the immortal words ‘we’re good at this’ before losing our 3-1 lead to a whitewashing I’d rather forget!

Salvation Army next week, see you there!