Last night we were back in the respite garden to do a tidy up after a busy summer of use. We set to work sweeping up, weeding, cleaning the equipment and pressure washing the patio. We were happy to have provided the evening entertainment for one of the young people staying. They kept a close watch to make sure we were doing a good job! It was great to welcome two new members Poppy Ollie this evening and we hope to see you back again soon.

It was time to get the Rose Road vehicles clean after a busy summer holidays of outings. We quickly divided ourselves into innies and outties and off we went! It wasn’t long before we had four vehicles hoovered, dusted, litter picked and washed. We managed to squeeze in a quick wash for the big bus too before home time!

Lucy helped out at the Rose road stall at Wickham festival. It was a very hot but fun day selling flower headbands and 'helping' people make Dreamcatchers. There were lots of lovely friendly people and plenty of chances to enjoy the festival too, the highlight was bouncing around to the Proclaimers!

Tonight we got to work tidying up the flower beds in the Rose Road car park. A lot of the plants were overgrown in the sensory garden, bindweed had taken over and rubbish had blown in off the street. We carefully pruned, pulled, picked and swept to leave the main flower bed looking much smarter and the parking spaces clear. I don't know about everyone else, but I worked so hard with the secateurs I got a blister!

Tonight we were in charge of cleaning and packing away all the things from the Colour Run the day before. We quickly got to work organising a box for resuable items, checking and refilling the "useful" event boxes, and wiping down the tables. Ashleigh upon discovering a wheel had broken on the trolley set out with great determination to fix it. It was no easy feat and she had to call Lucy in as reinforcements. After some work with a hammer, a glue gun and some tape the wheel was back on. Unfortunately it did not pass the "Can you support a whole human" test. So they had to start all over again! I can confirm the wheel is now back on but we wouldn't recommend an heavy loads at the front of the trolley or any bumpy ground!

I started off on car park marshalling while Ashleigh helped on registration for runners and walkers. It wasn’t long before it was time to head to our colour stations ready for the start. I jumped at the chance to be plant station 1 which meant we got to throw paint not once, not twice, but three times as it was two laps and we then moved to the finish arch. Now it took a bit of practise to see how much paint was needed per cup to get the best paint to people ratio. There were definitely some times with too much paint or person! I ended up chief paint police on the finish as we descended into anarchy with children pinching the paint. I had to ration it out to make sure we had enough left for all the finishes. Ashleigh had no such problems though as they chucked all their paint on the first lap. Job done!! We had so much fun and so did the participants. Some of them went for extra laps as they were having so much fun. We can’t wait for this event to come around again. It wasn’t long before it was all over and we were tidying up and trying to get ourselves back to our usual colour!