Safe as (green)houses!

4 fabulous runners ran 4km to tidy up the greenhouse and prepare flower beds at Hestia!

It was a pretty torrential Tuesday last night over in Ealing! But it didn't stop these guys from running to do good! Our fantastic 4 consisted of Mike, Jade, Amy and myself! Amy had just treated herself to a nice new waterproof jacket, very pink (we certainly weren't going to lose her!) and I couldn't think of a better evening to put it to the test... it CHUCKED it down!

We got going with a nice gentle jog to start off with and arrived at Hestia a few minutes later. We were greeted by the lovely Sandra who explained a bit about the charity and the work they do which is amazing! We then went through and met some of the clients who gave us a bit of a giggle! We went out to the garden to meet Theo who showed us what needed doing.

Are you sure you want to do this?

By this point, we were totally soaked and the rain was not letting up AT ALL. Theo just wanted to check that we were ABSOLUTELY sure that we wanted to go ahead with the task and of course it was a resounding YES from the group :) We came all this way, plus we were drenched anyway, might as well!

The little greenhouse provided a bit of respite for Jade, Mike and I. Amy sheltered under the tree, not that she needed to because I'm sure her swanky new jacket was keeping her bone dry anyway! One of the clients came out with a big parasol for us to shelter under... so lovely!

Jade and Mike got to work on clearing out all the weeds in the greenhouse. The whole thing was just covered, and you could barely move! Meanwhile, Amy started working on the flower beds, digging up all the weeds and turning the soil. There were some pretty stubborn roots in there and all sorts of stones, broken bits of tile and glass and loads of pine cones but it was starting to look great!

After 20 minutes, it was DONE! We took our bin bags out the back, said bye to Theo and then we headed off! We went back a different way just to make up a bit of extra distance and to make it a little loop so it looks nice on the Strava map afterwards! We stopped off on the green area for a short fitness session and then headed back for a stretch!

Thanks so much for coming! We managed to get so much done in a relatively short space of time so that's amazing! And well done for coming out despite the weather being atrocious! Give yourselves a pat on the back! See you next week :)