On a beautiful sunny day, two enthusiastic people walked briskly to Castlehaven to clear away the weeds.

Another sunny Tuesday, hooray! One of the regular volunteers commented that we always bring the sunshine; we try! This week Paul had another great task for us to get stuck in to. Gathering up trugs, trowels, mini-forks and gloves, we headed to the big raised bed near the nursery. It was looking rather lovely, with aliums standing proud and a general lushness all round. Our job was to get down and pull out all the little weeds that have come up in response to the rain at the weekend.

We were eager to get on, so made use of the kneeling pads (these are marvellous!) and set-to picking out the tiny weeds and tugging hard on the tougher, bigger ones. I always pick up a pair of gloves, but usually end up discarding them and getting all muddy, not because I like being muddy, but because I like to feel what I'm actually doing! It's amazing how therapeutic this kind of task is, you can chat, you can work in silence and you can drift off in your thoughts, engrossed in a very focussed activity. Mrika commented that she has really enjoyed these sessions and might like to come along to one of the regular sessions held at Castlehaven.

Before we knew it, it was time to pack up. Just look at all the weeds we cleared (see photos above)! Great work!

Before heading back to our start point, we did some core work and talked a little more about the wonderful Couch-2-5K, a great little podcast that can help you start running - lots of people use it to get active and to build up their fitness gradually. It turns out Mrika downloaded it after last week and has already been out and had a go!

Our next sessions will be in September, so keep up the good work and I look forward to seeing you again soon.

In scorching sunshine, two happy runners took on 2km and two raised beds.

The weather really couldn't be much more different to last week, where we were soaked wet through (but happy)! Today was hot and sticky, but we pushed on and reached Castlehaven feeling ready to get stuck in to whatever Paul had lined up for us.

He quickly showed us our area of focus for this week, the raised beds around the foot of two trees. These were currently full of dandelion clocks and various other weeds (and the odd bit of litter) and our job was to pull these up and dig over the soil, ready for planting. Sounds easy, eh? Oh my, that soil was rock hard and as dry as dust! This wasn't going to stop us though and we set-to, heads down, determined to clear the unwanted greenery. Every so often I looked up from my job, wiped my hot brow (spreading soil across my face, nice!) to see Mrika storming ahead, fantastic work! In fact, she finished her own tree before me and came over to help me finish mine - thank you!

Once we stepped back and saw what we had achieved, there were smiles all round and just enough time to wash our hands, gulp down some water and test our core strength with a few rounds of front planks, side planks and bridges - a great way to strengthen your core muscles to support your back and power your running or walking.

See you again next week, fingers crossed for more fine weather!

On a cold, wet and grey day, two determined people took to the streets of Camden, undeterred by such challenges!

Yes, the weather was GRIM! This didn't put us off though and we walked briskly to Castlehaven, to help out with a physical task. We met Paul, who handed us some gloves and litter-picking equipment. Looking professional, we headed out into the park spaces and cleared any litter we came across. The park looked pretty clean but, after a good walk around, we managed to fill two bags with rubbish! Great work!

Once we had put the rubbish in the bin and returned out equipment, we pushed ourselves in a short fitness session. Great work Mrika, for keeping going and working your muscles hard with some squats, push-ups, tricep dips, lunges and some run/walking.