While some sipped beer in their gardens, a fantastic fifteen painted walls and dug soil at Luxmore Gardens.

Cor! What a scorcher!

As they say. With our start point closing early, due to the Bank Holiday, I hung around outside, doing a bit of weeding in the sunshine, waiting for everyone to arrive. Some ran to join us, some sauntered in the sun, some jumped on the bus, but everyone assembled, knowing that their Bank Holiday beer (or non-alcoholic refreshment) would taste that much better after doing a bit of good with friends.

No newcomers to welcome tonight, but lots to celebrate, as always. It's been a bumper weekend of racing and cheering, with our runners taking part in the Westminster Mile, the Vitality 10k and, up in Edinburgh, Malcolm took on his first marathon and looked like he had loved it, as he proudly displayed his medal in post-race photos. Well done everyone!

The grassy area where we do our warm-up was pretty busy this evening, with lots of people enjoying the space, including a tiny little boy, who gleefully joined us, stretching his arms in the air and finishing off with a delighted squeal (we do enjoy a warm-up here, but I don't recall having anyone squeal before)! I think we have our GGLewisham mascot, right there!

Up the Vale

It's been a while since we ran along Loampit Vale and Lewisham Way, so off we went, shouting at each other over the traffic (it's not the most scenic route, but hey, it's direct!). It wasn't long before we arrived near our destination though and, quite handily, a neighbour lent out of their window to direct us towards the entrance to Luxmore Gardens, a beautiful little 'pocket park' nestled behind houses in Brockley. One of the things I truly love about what we do is discovering all these incredible community spaces that we might otherwise never find out about. As we ran in, we were treated to a reception of cheers and claps from the assembled 'Friends of Luxmore Gardens' (and Bradley, who was joining us here).

We met Lucy, who told us about the artist, Aspire, who has been commissioned to paint a mural here, starting this Saturday. Inspired by the birds that have been spotted here in the park, he will choose a few to depict and enhance and lift a corner of the park for everyone to enjoy. Our task for the evening was to paint the wall in preparation, the bottom half light green and the top half sky blue. As there were only so many brushes, rollers and indeed space, a smaller group took forks and spades to turn over and dig-in the compost in the beds, ready for a big planting project.

It was a real hive of activity, with the paint going on so quickly, I barely had time to capture the progress! Over at the beds, the team worked fast too, moving along in a line, digging and chatting, digging and chatting... Like a whirlwind of pastel paint (with thunder rumbling around us, threating to rain off the whole activity) the whole wall was covered in just twenty minutes...twenty minutes!! This left plenty of time for everyone to grab a tool and join Team Dig in finishing off the beds, incredible.

Hundred Hero

As I checked in, I noticed that Conroy was wearing his wings, which I'm pretty sure I hadn't seen before and, yes, this was their first outing! How lovely to see them in action (and already with a few drips of paint!).As we rounded off the evening, it was time to gather in front of the wall and take a group photo. I'm sure we will return later in the summer to help out again and to take another image in front of the completed mural.

Running along and down, we enjoyed our return leg, finishing off on the grass, where we started, with a friendly game of giant noughts and crosses, somehow ending up with 'girls' against 'boys'. It was fierce, with the competitive spirit kicking in (and I'm pretty sure I saw some actual kicking too) and the boys taking the first game, then the girls and Conroy taking the final win for the boys (nice work girls, letting him win on his wings debut ;) ). It wouldn't be a group run at this time of year without a bit of GG Olympic Games fun, so a quick wheelbarrow race before we stretched was just the ticket.

Next week we're off to the Wildcat Wilderness, where we will have a number of tasks to take on (and don't forget to sign up to our Summer Social there too). We also chatted briefly tonight about the Dino Dash on June 13th, over in Crystal Palace Park, a super-fun evening of relay racing with friends, have a look here.

See you soon!