This evening we ran 8km to help the Community Garden in Thornton Heath Rec

6 intrepid runners headed off on this dark and spooky night to reach Thornton Heath Rec’s beautiful Community Garden. Obligatory group photo with some spookier than normal posing going on and spooky face painting by Jenna and Sally. As it was a longer than normal run we didn’t waste to much time chatting and Dom headed off with one group and I brought up the rear with the other. Normally we include “loop backs” to keep the group together but tonight it was each group for themselves!

At the Community Garden we found Atul had decorated it just for us with banners and balloons and he’d even bought us some eyeballs (hope they were sweets!) and orange Hallowe’en fondant cakes – we did have to wait until we’d finished the task though.

The task for tonight involved pulling up the summer sunflowers and at over 8 or 9 feet tall it was a trickier task than it sounded. We then planted over 300 tulips after mixing up the bulbs so it should be a fantastically colourful display in the spring. I headed back a little before the end with my group and Dom ‘s group stayed to make sure all the bulbs were planted then were hot in pursuit. We did fool them by taking a longer route back via the handily placed Tesco’s bathroom facilities – I really shouldn’t drink so much coffee before heading out in the evening!

For those of you who have fallen in love with the Community Garden there is a regular session there every Sunday from 2-4pm throughout the year and they’d love it if you could pop along. You can find them on Facebook too.

Meeting back at Solutions we stretched, chatted and then some of us headed off to BoxPark for our monthly social. For such a hip and trendy place I was surprised to see the 20 foot screens showing not Grimsy but the finale of the Great British Bake Off and half of Croydon glued to the screens!

On Saturday we are hoping for a GoodGym posse at Lloyd Park’s 7th anniversary Parkrun. Come along to volunteer, run or just cheer and wear your GoodGym t-shirt if you can (I have a couple of spares if you let me know). You can sign-up here.

Next week we are heading to Park Hill school for a variety of tasks in the children’s garden area so don’t forget to sign up and see you soon.