We had our first run of 2016 this Wednesday. Here's what we got up to.

Haven you seen the Castle in Camden?

We ran a couple of KMs up the road from our starting place in Somers Town to Castlehaven Community Centre. It's a corking facility offering a range of services to the local community.

They manage the local park surrounding the centre. Gardener Fred coordinates various volunteer and recreational gardening groups who keep the area looking tidy while learning a bit about gardening. Fred has recently joined the team and is looking to establish a bit of structure. Over the last few years gardeners have come and gone, and initiatives have been started and not completed.

Des-Res

There is a huge area under the the railway arch opposite the centre. It's called the Des Res and is currently used to store tools, trolleys, bins, soil and wood. There is also a host of other less useful items.

Rubble spread

Hidden in an amongst the detritus was some rubble. It was getting in the way and should have been disposed of. Fred wanted shot so asked us to dispose of it in the nature trail garden. We grabbed some trolleys, and a couple of spades and started shifting the sacks.

Sorting Wood

There was a huge pile of wood shoved into a corner where Fred is looking to store lawnmowers and open up use or a tap. Our task was to shift it and sort it all into manageable piles. Dan W donned the headtorch and the team got stuck in!

Shifting Fencing and Tidying Logs

The rest of the Des Res was a general mess- fences everywhere, twigs and branches sitting in higgledy piggledy piles. 10 people were charged with giving everything a general tidy, amalgamating piles and stuffing stuff into sacks for disposal. It was a pretty impressive effort.

Poster delivery

The Des Res was pretty full at this stage so 10 people were charged with dashing around the adajacent streets and delivering some flyers about the centre. Nice work.

After 40mins we had more or less done everything. The box of flyers was empty, the Des Res was tidy and the rubble was hidden amongst the undergrowth on the nature trail. Lovely. We set off on our way home, making our way towards the canal. It's about a mile from Camden to Granary Square and some people decided to push themselves on the way back- picking the pace up as they went. Each time they reached a bridge they slightly increased the tempo, finishing hard on a lap around the square. A few others, including myself, kept it social and meandered our way back to the square at our own pace. After congregating at the square we jogged back to Somers Town together as a team, finishing with a quick stretch before heading off on our merry way. Nice one everyone!