On a slightly rainy Tuesday evening, 15 eager beavers showed up at Vivo health club to go on what they thought was going to be a long run to help create a garden for people with mental health challenges. Sadly the garden had been vandalized and so before we could do our bit, they had to sort things out at their end, so we didn't run there.

On the plus side, the contact I had for our run next week to Portland Square, Simon, was really keen for us to come and make a start a week early! He pulled out several stops and got some tools arranged for us too.

Off we ran through the misty muggy rain and soon got to Portland Square where there was no Simon to be found. Luckily as an ex-Brownie, I was prepared, and as I'd met with Simon a few weeks before, I knew where we were needed and what beds were to be weeded!

The runners launched themselves at the weed chocked bed and began to pull up a veritable mountain of greenery. After a huge amount of headway was made, a few of the runners went over to trim some epicormic growth from a couple of trees in the square as well.

However...

As the undergrowth was cleared, many items were found, including the usual beer cans and food wrappers, but also a Sony USB to HDMI cable, several playing cards and also a MiniDisc! The icing on the cake however was a tiny but very fast mouse whose home we'd seeming just torn up. It would not stay still and caused quite a stir! It was very cute though.

Shortly after Simon arrived with some tools so we managed to get in deep to dig up the roots of some of the more pernicious weeds, so the last 15 minutes were really finishing off the first flower bed and making it ready for anything that needs to be planted in there.

After a good 35 minutes of hard work and also getting quite muddy, we cleared up, returned the tools to Simon and went on our merry way. On our return to Vivo we encountered a slightly lecherous white van man, we ran through a posh shopping center covered in mud (it was the fastest route, honest!) and almost covered a shiny white BMW in muddy hand prints - GoodGym was becoming NaughtyGym!

Safely back at Vivo, we had a good stretch, came up with the pun, and quite a few people stayed behind for drinks. Alice mentioned a fang-tastic Halloween run - details can be found here although it would be spooktackular if we can co-ordinate the time that we run so we all run together... so watch this space!