This group run was a 2 task week and we had 12 wonderful GG-ers ready to tackle the litter at The Albany and the mulch at the Tiny Forest

We gathered outside Glass Mill and as I approached it was great to see a group forming after last week's bank holiday lowering our group run numbers. We split into groups and one group headed to the Tiny Forest guided by Steve and photographer for the evening Julian and the other group to The Albany with me.

The Tiny Forest team were joined by Linda and a couple of Tree Keepers and most importantly joined by Suki - our favourite Tiny Forest dog! There was lots of mulch to be moving to the main Tiny Forest (we covered the extension last week) and involved filling buckets and pouring those over the fence.

Meanwhile at The Albany....there was barely any litter!! That's never happened in the history of group runs at The Albany, usually its a satisfying clean up of all the cans and chicken shop wrappers that have blown in from the streets.

We did still fill 3 GIANT bin bags, when I say fill I mean to about 50% as they were so big I could fit in them and they got heavy quite quickly, with the litter, not with me in them! The litter we did find was described as level 10 litter i.e. nappies etc not pleasant - bring back the cans and chicken shop wrappers (although no litter at all would be encouraged)!

At both tasks it started to rain slightly then it started to pour down!! We made the decision to pack up our litter picking at the same time as the Tiny Forest text to say the rain was too much and they were heading back to Glass Mill.

We regrouped at Glass Mill and headed off for our social at the local, Guardian recommended Turkish restaurant. After some confusion over the booking which Marta handled, we were all seated and ready for a catch up and refuel.

This dedicated bunch weren't phased by the prospect of 2500 flyers...maybe we were still when we were down to 4 (hope your knee is feeling better Adam).

The first task of the evening was to find the community garden - ✅

The second task of the evening was to get in the community garden - ✅

The third task of the evening was to find the flyers hidden within the community garden - ✅ after me and Julian reading the instructions a couple of times and a paving slab falling on Julian's foot!

By then it was finally time to start flyering. We split into 2 groups and gave ourselves 25min to get as much flyering done as possible within a specific area on our maps (thanks for highlighting Oli). We then regrouped at the community garden to check how many leaflets we had left.

Restocked (or returning our optimistic pile of leaflets) and we headed back out for another 10min to tackle another area before it was time to head back to Glass Mill.

Well done Team! We are going to be covering another area in Catford to spread the word about the project at the end of April.

It's good to be back with the team after a week of skiing but more importantly it's good to have Oli back from his marathon running in Tokyo so I no longer have to think of puns (thinking of them makes my brain hurt)!

Monday's task was at Lewisham Unity which is a multifaith community based in Catford, they have a great outdoor space which is lined with some wonderful (but huge) trees and their leaves and twigs fall all over the garden area.

Our task was to clear all the leaves and twigs and either put in the garden waste bin or the leaves in the giant bags which in a couple of years will be mulch! We're still waiting on seeing this mulch after collecting the leaves last year too, maybe this time next year we will see the results of our hard work.

We also tackled a quick litter pick and by the time we were leaving the garden was looking much tidier of leaves.

Great work team!

First up a huge thank you to Victoria who said she'd open up PNK Garden within minutes of my message to the whatsapp group to say the task was cancelled! You saved the day and it meant we could still do good in the borough and still get in a longer run (I'm not sure how important that was to everyone but wouldn't want to disappoint on what was advertised...).

Instead of going up and over the hills, we had a more flat route to the PNK Garden. Although never will that stretch along the main road not feel incredibly long and it's actually not that long at all, like a quarter of the run!

There was plenty of tasks to get stuck into including weeding, digging soil to put in the raised beds, ripping up cardboard to also but in the raised beds and stapling insert word here (I've spent a good few min thinking of the word - the material to stop the weeds coming through).

Time always flies when we are at PNK Garden and it was soon time to be heading back to Glass Mill with our broccoli and chard - thank you!!

Next week we're heading to The Albany.

We had lots of tasks to tackle at the PNK Garden this week, it was our first visit of 2024! It's a long run to PNK Garden but the team handled it in their stride.

The tasks for this evening were: - Weeding - there's always lots of peaky weeds to tackle at the garden. - Litter picking - same as above, lots of litter blows in from the main road. - Moving soil - I have to admit I have no idea what was going on here except the soil was going from one end of the garden to the other in wheelbarrows.

And when we left there was a HUGE rock being removed from one of the containers.

Thanks team for walking the last 1km with me when I wasn't feeling well! Also the reason behind the delay of the run report but all should be back to normal for Seniors on Monday.