We started the evening by celebrating Samantha's 50th run. Hooray - give her a cheer!

This week we had two runs, the first was led by Victoria. Here's her report:

Vix took ten new and some not so new but still new-ish faces the 1k run to Wyck gardens and neighbouring Loughborough Farm. They are a community space which grow edibles for locals to enjoy.

Having been told to do a warm up around the block, we made the rare turn left out of Papa's, only to jog it out and back on ourselves just as the other group were setting off. Helpful cheers of encouragement from coach George "haha, did you get lost!?" only served to spur our orchard-bound crew on.

We had team walk, team water and team wood chip.

Team walk was led by Lucy to accommodate a pesky injury.

Team water filled every possible vessel at the farm with, ahem water, and initiated Martin into his first group run by giving him the coveted task of wheelbarrowing; navigating some antisocial Brixton motorists along the way. This was to water many fruit trees and newly planted sage and sorrel.

Sorrel goes astoundingly well in an omelette! Sylvie proclaimed.

Team wood chip lay a circle of wood chip around the newly bedded plants to deter trampling. Will did a sound job of woodchip dishing out, and regaled us with stories of his fourth (and I'll bet wettest) marathon which he ran with Goodgym last weekend in Yorkshire. Give him a cheer!

Walter, who is in charge of the orchard, was pleased and invited us back as soon as next week.

The rest of us went down to Brixton Youth Club. At this time of year, the leaves fall hard on the outdoor area and they can't keep up with clearing them. George led a longer run and Katie took a group straight there. On arrival we fished out all of the rakes and brooms and set about clearing them all up. After 30 minutes of hard work, we had managed to scoop up and bag leaves all the way around the yard.

On the way home we did some lamppost intervals along Brixton road. It was fun and we were all puffed out when we got back to base. It was lucky we burnt off calories as it was a Bake off BONANZA this week! We had two types of biscuit, some brownies, ginger cake and a delicious white chocolate and rasperry cheesecake. Everyone really tucked in and everything was delicious.

Star bakers all round!

The first week of October meant it was proper dark when we started our run and even darker when we finished! Luckily, we had two great tasks to get on with and everyone was super up for it.

A smaller group led by JKB headed back to the Tulse Hill Estate, where task owner Vinnie and his barky dog had three jobs that needed our attention. One group sorted out a compost heap that was a right mess, another moved a big old load of soil whilst group 3 moved a load of soil. You could say it was an evening of MOVING for this team but boy did they do well. Shout outs to Andrew and Rebecca who stayed behind to tidy up at the end. TOP STUFF.

WOOF! WOOF! Said the dog.

The rest headed to the fantastic Grove Adventure Playground, which is 1km away. For those wanting a longer run, Tom H led a group 3.5km round the houses. Once there, some people set about digging holes in the ground to plant some grasses that were from the Chelsea Flower Show don't you know. It turns out this was much harder than it seemed as chunks of concrete were awaiting us below the surface. After some serious perseverance all grasses got planted, which task owner Anthea was very impressed by. Another group filled up a flower bed with soil and the rest set about some serious weeding of flower beds out the front and also between the paving out the back. Even more people swept and mopped the floor inside. All in all, we got loads done and one tool was like a broom but had a tiny head on the end and we thought it was like a giant's toothbrush. So that was fun.

It's like a giant's toothbrush! Said Freyja.

On return to base, we tucked into some delicious biscuits and some cake that had candles on it as it was Katie's (that's me!) birthday so that was very nice. THANKS LAMBETH!

We had two lovely runs this evening, one was back to the historic Brixton Windmill. Tucked away off Brixton Hill, lots of people don't even know this windmill exists but it does and it is a great place of learning, surrounded by a peaceful garden. Beth led a group on a 1km route to the mill, whilst those wanting a longer run took the 4km Tom Benson run bus.

Here's what Beth had to say:

For those of us that took the direct route up Brixton Hill there was some chat on the way there about how few of us knew that Brixton had it’s own fully functioning windmill. On arrival we were a little disappointed to see that the sails had been taken off the windmill but once they are repaired they’ll be back on and it will be looking more functional again soon. Jean handed out tools and showed us what needed doing. A large group neatened up the edge of the path, a group of three started digging a spot for a new tree and there was also trimming of some overgrown plants to be done. Once the reinforcements arrived in the shape of Tom’s long run group there was even more digging going on and plenty of sweeping and bagging up of weeds.

The rest of us went 2km up to the Tulse Hill Estate. Hidden amongst the buildings is an incredible polytunnel that serves as an educational food growing project for the whole estate. Over the summer, hundreds of tomato plants were cultivated and given out to residents to grow on their balconies. The project gets lots of reclaimed wood that is used to make pallet beds for growing but at the moment it was all piled up next to some garages. Presenting a fire risk, it needed to be moved so we squeezed into the small space and started pulling them out and taking them to a safer space. The pile was quite big and there were bits of timber, old fence and even a fireguard that we pulled out of the way. It was a fantastic effort made all the better by not scratching the very nice VW Golf parked precariously near to the work area.

On arrival back to base, we tucked into some Bake Off treats from Tess and Sarah. It was all delicious and we headed off home happy.

September has come round and the nights start to draw in again. The hot summer has started to leave us but that was lucky for this evening as we were back to Clapham Common to take off some more top soil as we finish off the wildflower meadow. As the summer was hot and dry, the ground was still pretty hard and everyone had a tough session trying to get their spades through the roots!

It's hard to get through these roots! Said everyone

After running 2.5km there, we split into two groups. One went off to do some fitness with Katie and a lovely yoga for runners session from newly returned Sarah, whilst the other half got digging. After swapping, we then ran back in three groups at different paces. On return we all enjoyed WEEK ONE of our Bake Off Sweetstake - Vix and John H brought us some sweet and savoury biscuit joy. Wahey!