It was Earth Day, a day to celebrate nature and consider what we can do to help and protect it.

Our task at the Lea Vale Community Garden was to help get some unruly vegetable beds in order with a good digging over and building some new wooden frames around them. This will allow the gardens users to focus on making contact with nature by growing vegetables in the garden and enjoying the peace of this secluded green space.

As always it was a steep run up to Farley Hill that got our legs pumping hard and burning loads of calories. After the task we did a nice core conditioning workout on the lawn before heading back down the hill.

We had a good team out to support with Parkrun and although it was sunny there was a definite chill in the air. Dani had the auspicious role of funnel manager and di her best to keep Gill and Duncan in check as they tried not to mess up the timekeeping (which Gill failed to do). Sam and Prashant had already set up the course and were ready to take down at the end of the run while Lee had been a motivational marshal - cheering every runner on as they passed his post and making sure all were safe. Great way to start the weekend, team!

4 Goodgymers joined today Gill helped her hubby on food collection but had to dash off to another commitment. Dani joined the cooking team with her well deserved Brighton marathon medal 🏅. Well done 👏👏👏 Neill was busy preparing food parcels and serving food with the hosting team Lucie was on the soup duty

This evening we served 34guests plus takeaways .

On today’s menu was: Starter Carrot 🥣 soup with bread 🍞 Main Chilli , baked potato 🥔 and slaw Dessert Yoghurt fruit salad with 🧁 cakes

This week our group run was a team-up with another group of volunteers from the Luton Someries Rotary Club. They look after a garden patch in Wardown Park that went a bit wild in past years but has been brought back under control thanks to their efforts.

We ran out from the town centre to find Jan and her team of volunteers getting the weeding done. Our first job was to dig some holes and plant the new plants. A second job was to dig out a clump of sedge which had got a bit out of control. That turned out to be the biggest job as it really didn't want to move. Resistant to forks, spades, sawing the roots it really wouldn't budge.

Community spirited passer-by Hafsa stopped to see what we were up to and joined in with the gang, helping to transform this patch into a flowery feature for the summer. Good on you Hafsa! It's lovely when people compliment our activity and amazing when they join in 💪🏼

A quick break for squash and some Jammy Dodgers and we tried again to have a go at the sedge, summoning the tiger energy in turns to hack away at the roots with a spade and in the closing moments of the session, we secured victory and ripped the clump out of the ground!

Tidying up we helped carry all the weeds and cuttings to the car park for later disposal and bid farewell to Jan's team as we set off for a lap of the cricket pitch and finish our 5km distance for the evening.

Darshini and I had an hour or so at Mrs L’s as she has limited mobility but was keen to get her front garden looking slick and span now that the spring is here. The main task was to scrape out the moss that was growing between the block paving stones. At first sight it looked as if we would be finished quickly and have time to start on the back garden too… But no… there was no messing with the moss- it seemed to cling on for dear life! But at least we had time for a good natter while we scraped and swept to leave the garden looking neat and tidy.

Our planned visit to the Lea Vale Community garden was cancelled last minute so that meant quickly packing our handy folding pickers in a backpack and heading out in search of litter.

The original task involved a run up to Farley Hill so we kept that theme and ran up to Winsdon Hill, picked our way back down again and collected about 8 bags of rubbish between us. We also reported a few bulky fly tips to the council too so they can be collected later on.

A lovely warm and sunny evening was perfect to enjoy the wild flowers on the Winsdon hill meadows and the blossom on the hawthorns and the cherry tree plus the view over Luton from the top of the hill.