It was a small, but mighty group that left Glass Mill taking the scenic route through Brookmill Park (there were once lots of mills along the Ravensbourne) to The Albany, meeting Joseph at the door. We were given a brief tour - seeing the stage where a former Area Activator had once performed.

Its Open House weekend fairly soon and we were given video instructions as to what was needed - moving one side of a pile of wood chip to paths in the garden area. It was the first task of the season that needed head torches to see help with the raking on the path.

Tonight's task was a welcome return to Florence Green to help at this lovely restored open space, We were met by Subo and a random passing volunteer and got down to work raking up leaves and grass and picking up sticks. What we lacked in tools we more than made up for in enthusiasm and soon the respective stick and leaf piles had grown to impressive heights. After a hour the place was looking significantly tidier and it was time to run off into the sunset.

An intrepid group of runners left Glass Mill a bit earlier than normal for our longest run of the year to Baring Road Allotments which are being converted from rubbish strewn abandoned ground into community allotments. We met Clare and Louise at the task.

We were issued with gloves and wheelbarrows which were skipped down to far end of the site, past sunflowers to collect rubbish, wood and bricks then trundled slowly back with the barrows to split into metals, wood and stone with the rest heading into the skip. We filled around a dozen barrows. It was a lovely task, in a beautiful location with plenty of wildlife (fox cub and loads of parakeets; Lindsay even had time to brush up her archery

We had a busy night in store at the Albany, as while the lovely gardener there was away, they'd sent a wonderful video showing all the things that they'd like us to in preparation for a summer jamboree!

We needed to make sure their party went to plan! First timer Michael quickly got to work with several other moving a large pile of paving slabs to the side of the building. There was plenty of choice with the tasks with moving woodchip to a path, moving a large compost bin, along with the regular task there - litter picking. Everything was done plus a bit of pruning along the newly chipped path.

We had a lovely evening and hope to see Michael again soon! We were able to pose by the sunflowers, we had cleared and prepared the ground for them earlier in the year.

Something we discovered after the session was that the visit to the Albany completed an incredible 100 month streak of group sessions for the amazing Vic (pictured second left on the group photo).