12 Brave souls headed deep into the depths of East London with 2 mounds of compost to move at 2 seperate locations. One being the Dalston Curve Garden and the other being the secret bee garden. 2 others headed off for a mission at an older persons house where they would tend some shrubbery and some overgrown grass.

Marie and Natalie at the Dalston Curve Garden enthusiastically welcomed us back this sunny weekday eve to help out once again with their enormous compost pile. Being a little thinly spread this week, the five of us assigned to this particular task set about shifting a (possibly Good Gym record breaking) 15 tonnes (!!) of compost out of the way of the garden’s delivery entrance where it had been dumped. Needless to say, we didn’t quite manage the whole lot so will be back soon to finish off.

As well as being a beautiful oasis tucked away in busy Dalston, The Curve Garden host regular compost giveaways to local residents, make delicious pizza’s in the the outdoor stone oven, are in the process of landscaping a lovely new kids' play area and even have a bar! If you’ve not been there before then be sure to pay them a visit and check out the fragrant new influx of flowers kindly donated by Chelsea flower show this week.

At Dalston Junction 5 of us waved goodbye to those who carried on to Dalston Garden and got on with the gargantuan task of shifting a huge pile of compost across the busy Dalston Lane with wheelbarrows, followed by the smiley but puzzled gazes of drivers, bar punters and passers by. The compost (more like dry and dusty manure, that had luckily been lightened up by the loss of moisture) was destined to a bee garden in the making behind the Arcola theatre. A local resident revealed to us that a few of her neighbours had been helping themselves from the smelly mound that had magically and mysteriously appeared on Beechwood Rad and I think she was glad for the explanation we gave for its existence. We made a reasonable dent on the sizeable hill but we will undoubtedly be back for more.

As if by magic, all of us converged right on time, including Rich and Antonia returning from helping an elderly resident with their gardening near Hagerstown, to run back to London Fields for the obligatory bit of torture fun to finish off the session. Splitting into pairs we twelve smashed three rounds of running at pace around the cricket circle (about 0.5km) while our partner planked HARD. Lot’s of groaning and panting was followed by a lovely yogic warm down and stretch.

Good luck to Emily and Gavin who are running the Bristol 10k this weekend and happy birthday to Gavin as well! See you all next week. x