Out of the watering can, inca the fire

32 people ran between 4-8k to help disassemble a shed, tidy and burn leaves at an Eco Park and plant a rare Incan Root in Camden.

What a great night! 2 amazing tasks, one including a great long run, a fire to keep us warm and a free box of muesli to take home!

One group of 20 set off up Camley Street to Alara Dream Farm. As well as making lovely muesli Alara does a whole lot of exciting stuff for local people- running an Eco Park where local food growing groups can access fresh compost, an orchard planted and managed by local children, and some small food growing plots used by local groups. We had 3 important jobs- Collecting and burning dead leaves from the food growing plots, digging over an area by the eco park and planting and watering some rare Inca roots, and removing wire from protective stakes in the Orchard. Blimey....as Phil said " it was one of my favourite ever!"

Rootie Tootie

Alex was a great host- describing how the rare Inca root Yacón or the Peruvian ground apple could not be grown in the UK until he gained permission the day before. It's the ultimate food, as it's unique combination of sugars have little or no calorific value. A sugary treat with no downside....phwooooooaaar. It was great fun-and the burning leaves kept us warm despite the plummeting temperatures.

Blanc faces

With time running out Alex brought us all a lovely box of Muesli (made with Raymond Blanc...he wasn't in it- he just made the recipe and put his face on the box) before we headed home. On the way back, as Faye describes, we "got some valuable mentoring on running style from Shaun when we reached Granary Square, while keeping a watch out for muesli thieves" as they inquisitively wandered past our pile of boxes! I think they were just interested in Raymond's face.

The long run task

The other team headed for Youth Centre The Winch They work with children and young people between 4- 25 years old, offering a number play groups, after school clubs and even enterprise programmes for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Freya descibes the long run up there;

9 keen beans with bags of enthusiasm and little sense of direction set off at quite a lick to ensure we had enough time to get some muscle time in at The Winch. We chatted away until Primrose Hill soon shut us up. The view at the top was definitely worth it (maybe), thank goodness it was downhill from there!

Shed loads of work to do

When they arrived Sabine from The Winch quickly put them to work- showing them a indoor shed that needed dismantling and moving downstairs....Interesting task but a useful one- they use it to store all sorts of stuff and are so busy at the moment they weren't sure how to get it out of the way! It was fun- as Chris said "It was slow progress to begin with but once we had a screw loose the shed was soon dismantled"* Boom Shack-a-lacka!

Great stuff guys- 5 big tasks totally smashed!