Lots of weeding and double deeding

18 runners ran 4k on a Saturday morning double to help out at Windmill Hill City Farm and Incredible Edible’s volunteer day at the Bear Pit

It was great to have two newcomers along today as Cicely and Claire joined us for their first run and it was great to have a treat in store for them.

With our Saturday morning numbers swelling and with Wimbledon approaching it’s climax, we thought we’d go for a game of doubles today, which is becoming a bit of a feature of Saturdays, and it’s great that we are able to do this and that everyone is willing to go along with this.

We ended up conveniently with a 7-Eleven split and Paul very kindly agreed to take a group over to the Bear Pit, to help out Incredible Edible at their volunteer day.

Team Paul

A magnificent of GG gardeners (and if that isn't the correct collective term for a team 7 of Goodgym gardeners then it should be) passed up the opportunity to visit the animals at Windmill Hill and headed instead for the more urban wildlife of Bristol bearpit.

Since the distance was extremely short, we took a bit or a roundabout route through Castle Park (as some squiggly strava routes will testify). We had some fun trying to keep up with Matts exploratory excursions as he attempted to find some sort of gradient to run up and managed a few stretches of sideways and backwards running to mix things up a bit. A somewhat ill-advised attempt at lunges around the bandstand had to be quickly aborted when it became apparent that it was playing host to a peaceful party of Tai Chi exponents.

Once we arrived at the bear pit we were met by Hannah of Incredible Edible. This was a bit of an impromptu visit and so it was a relief when she seemed pleased to see us and have our help in weeding one of the new planted areas before a visit by the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society don't you know!). She equipped us all with trowels and we did a very thorough job removing all the unwanted growth. (Sadly the tool store was locked up so for once the wheelbarrow remained stashed away but we now have a couple more Incredible Edible outings in the diary so no doubt we'll get some wheelbarrow action on a future visit!)

Thanks to all my bearpit crew for coming along and working so hard - hopefully the RHS will be very impressed!

Team Dave

I took the larger group off to Windmill Hill City Farm, which is a glorious place full of animals and plants where people of all ages come to learn and play. Here we met up with the wonderful Beth, who explained a bit more about what goes on at the farm and in particular the development of the community garden where they grow food to supply the cafe on the site.

We were tasked with removing some pesky bindweed that was taking over the perimeter of the farm site, quickly organising ourselves into 3 groups and setting about clearing out the bindweed into plastic buckets and then transferring this into special bindweed compost bins, where it will take up to two years to break down before then being added into the everyday compost containers.

Our work completed, we headed off to the volunteer centre to grab a drink and then wandered round to look at the animals on the farm, stopping for a group photo by the cows and then realised that there was one that we couldn’t find. Caroline the Puma had gone missing!

We eventually found her stealthily patrolling the farm, bid farewell to Beth and trotted back to Roll For The Soul for a cool down with stretches and looking longingly at the other group who were already inside the cafe awaiting their lunch.

Another wonderful Saturday run, gang - thank you for being the awesome people you are!