What a different an hour makes, as the group benefitted from the recent clocks change and met up in FULL sunshine at Glass Mills! We also welcomed back Amy to the fold, after a few years away from the group.

Setting off on the dot, our route this evening was a straight shot along Lewisham High Street to Catford – not the most picturesque, as a couple of people noted, but there was at least the upside of the cacophony of smells from all kinds of restaurants and eateries along the way (though not great for any peckish runners!).

Arriving at Lewisham Unitarians, we were greeted not only by Kim but also by Steve who (I’ve since learned) was celebrating the amazing milestone of his 600th good deed! GG Lewisham’s own bowling pro never was one to flaunt his achievements… so we will on his behalf: congratulations!!

With daylight still on our side, we set about tackling the Unitarian’s garden’s twin foes: fallen leaves, and fly-tipping :o( the latter was meticulously cleaned & bagged up, including the surprising find of a van’s entire front bumper.

For the leaves, it was a case of adding to a set of rubble sacks in which the group’s previous efforts were slowly mulching away.

With our host needing to depart before sunset, this was a fairly short task but the garden’s modest size also meant it was perfect to be tackled in the time available by an enthusiastic group!

As if the satisfaction of a job well done wasn’t enough, we were then cheered by GG royalty on our way home, as we passed Adele!

In the years that we've been visiting Lewisham Unity it has been the coldest group run, the wettest group run and now the hottest group run!! A smaller group gathered at Glass Mill, only the bravest heading out to do good in that heat. We had a plan to run / walk and get to the task without feeling too hot and bothered.

The tasks for the evening were: - clear the grass of leaves, both front and back garden - mow the lawn - pick up litter - move the gravel to cover the bare spots

We got all the tasks ticked off and admired our giant bags of leaves we've collected over the years in the hope they'll turn into some excellent mulch.

Thanks team for heading back to Glass Mill without me whilst I went to check Molly hadn't melted in the heat!

It's good to be back with the team after a week of skiing but more importantly it's good to have Oli back from his marathon running in Tokyo so I no longer have to think of puns (thinking of them makes my brain hurt)!

Monday's task was at Lewisham Unity which is a multifaith community based in Catford, they have a great outdoor space which is lined with some wonderful (but huge) trees and their leaves and twigs fall all over the garden area.

Our task was to clear all the leaves and twigs and either put in the garden waste bin or the leaves in the giant bags which in a couple of years will be mulch! We're still waiting on seeing this mulch after collecting the leaves last year too, maybe this time next year we will see the results of our hard work.

We also tackled a quick litter pick and by the time we were leaving the garden was looking much tidier of leaves.

Great work team!

The last of our May bank holiday group runs was taking us to Catford to visit our friends at Lewisham Unity. A surprisingly shorter run that anticipated, a nice change from my usual longer than anticipated group runs!

There was a list of tasks for us to tackle: - moving the sand to create a path around the cherry tree and to protect the edges of the raised beds from weeds - watering all the recently planted vegetable plants and herbs - remove a sycamore that had self seeded and was now taking over - great work Julian! - mowing the lawn (a task that sparked a couple of reminders of childhood chores) - litter picking - moving a huge bag of leaves that we filled over a couple of visits in the cold dark months of winter

It was wonderful to visit the garden in daylight and see the difference we made during the winter visits when we could barely see what was there! We made a huge difference tonight that would have taken Simone and the team longer than the 45min that it took us.

Next week we're heading to Luxmore Gardens for more weeding and maybe some watering.