Pulling Balsam in the sun - its the Beese-ness!

A brand new location today - and a long old run to get there too. An 11 km round trip in the hot sun saw the group thin out a bit on the final couple of hills, but we all got to our meet point at Eastwood Farm safe and sound in the end.

As the name suggests, the site was originally a farm but our host Ralph explained that the area had been re-purposed as landfill site in the 70s. This means that it is no longer suitable for building and has subsequently been designated as a local nature reserve.

Our task today was to remove invasive Himalayan Balsam from a small meadow area. This meant getting in amongst a few brambles and nettles so there were a few spare tops and long trousers donned in spite of the heat. The one good thing about Balsam though - as we've learned before, is that it is very easy to pull it out of the soil so pretty soon we had two sizeable piles and a much clearer patch of meadow.

It just remained for a 5.5 km return trip back to base but while half of us set off on our return leg the other half decided that the prospect of wild swimming at Beeses Team Rooms was too good an opportunity to pass up!

Special thanks to Maria for offering to be my back-up today in case I got called and for doing such a great job of back marking everyone over such a long run