We ran around 3km to plant, weed, dig, move........you name it we did it tonight!

Another beautiful evening for a run and tonight we had two local tasks. So after a quick warm-up we split up into two groups and headed off to our tasks. Ellie led the first group to Park Hill School where, for the first time, they completed the task in daylight and without being soaked. Ellie is going to send me some details about what they got up to which I’ll add to the report ASAP. My group included new runners Nirvana and Olecia and Sally and we headed to Park Hill Rec to plant our bed in the Peace Garden. Thanks go to Josi and Catherine ** for spending their time buying us red and white flowers and thanks too to **Ideverde for donating some lovely red snap dragons. Before we planted the red and white flowers in the GoodGym logo we had to move a few plants and pull out some sneaky weeds that had appeared since our last visit. We are really looking forward to seeing our logo bloom over the summer.

And here is Ellie's report for her school garden task.

"Team two headed up to Park Hill School where there were lots of tasks waiting for us! First job on the list was sorting out the pond, which was covered with a very thick layer of pond cress - this was painstakingly scooped up with a net and put carefully to one side (just in case there were any little creatures snuggled in there!). We even caught a newt! Another group set to work on a huge stretch of nettles that reached almost to head height! They hacked and chopped away until the ground was clear - very hard work in such hot and humid weather! Meanwhile another little group cleared a flowerbed of weeds ready for the children to plant with some bedding plants later in the week. Two huge piles of weeds later and it was ready to go! Alongside, Andy build a small fence to create a new raised bed on a slope and then carted lots of compost up the hill to fill this up ready for some pumpkin plants to be planted very soon. Great work everyone!"

Ellie led the fitness session tonight while a few of us stayed in the garden to water the newly planted flowers. She had the runners jump and skip along a ladder, run in circles and perform a series of exercise which probably gave the other park users something to watch and marvel at. All in all a great evening.

Don’t forget the Festival of Peace – the finale of this week long event is on Saturday 23rd of June in Park Hill Rec at 11.30am and there will be a yogathon so it’d be great to have as many of us as possible in our t-shirts doing some downwards dogs. Bring a towel or mat, friends and family and your yoga vibes too.

Finally…. Next week we are off to Addiscombe Road to haul out the ivy and also along to a local nursery to rid them off some sand. It’s also the last Tuesday of the month so we thought for a change we could head to the Oval Tavern as it’ll be close by and at the moment BoxPark is full of football noise!