Nine runners ran 7.8km to help with the pond tyre wall at Saffron Acres

What an absolutely wonderful effort from everyone tonight! A longer run than usual, an extremely physically demanding tax and a sterling effort from everyone in the group to make a big different at Saffron Acres Community Heathland tonight.

With regular back marker Jimmy absent nursing an injury, Huw used his nagging lurgy as an excuse to back mark this week with Dave "green light" Snutch leading us on our merry (for most of the run) way to Saffron Acres for the first time in 2019. With a longer run than usual on the cards, one or two (or three or four) of the group were eyeing up cheeky 20-30 second rest stops at traffic lights en route. Little did we know that Dave, in a scene reminiscent of the gang in the Italian Job rigging the traffic lights to get out of Turin during the football match, seemed to have a knack for hitting green pretty much all the way there! No rest for the wicked! Dave needs to get on the roulette table with that sort of consistency.

Having needed four of the group to have a go at unlocking the padlock to get in to the site, we arrived to find a tyre wall full of soil that needed shifting to make a ramp to access the platform overlooking the pond. Alex from Saffron Acres had made a start this afternoon to show us how it was done and the group set to work with great tenacity, wheelbarrowing the soil from the tyres to their new location and replacing the tyres in their wall formation. Having put in a real shift tonight the group were rewarded with squash and cakes provided by Mel, a well earned treat before our run back to base.

It's nights like tonight that make me proud to be a part of this wonderful group. Both the run and task were challenging tonight and everyone got stuck and made a huge difference to a great little community project.

Well done all!

HD