We welcomed back Sharon who has not been able to join us for a while due to injury. Rather than our usual fact-based intro, we had a little maths test counting up only in prime numbers. Turns out we had 41 runners not 14.

A short 2k run to the task meant that we arrived before it got too dark but not before it started to rain. Thankfully it wasn’t as heavy as our last visit here in July, which warranted a sailing based pun-report. Also Dominique saw us coming and had the doors open quickly to get us inside. She explained how much the residents enjoyed our last visit but unfortunately many of them were ill at the moment and could not join us this time. Perhaps this why the “tea trolley of joy” also did not make an appearance?!

Three areas were tackled, two of which required some rose trimming. You would think that most Swindon GG Runners would be experts in rose trimming by now, but just to be safe we set two rose trimming supervisors Tracy and Jo. Some of the rose bushes required climbing into the flower bed which meant roses got where they weren’t meant to:

“I’ve got a rose thorn up my ass” (anon)

The de-weeding didn’t take too long and we finished with planting daffodils and tulips. Unfortunately the GG flowers planted last time had been instantly attacked by squirrels so has now turned in to a single G.

Given we had time to spare on the way back we took a detour to find “tappy boxes” (Beat the Street). The Run Leader would have fully prepped the route and the box locations if it was not for a bicycle malfunction on the recce. In the end it got a bit too dark and rainy and we gravitated back to the café for indoor based hot drink consumption training.

The next two tasks are for Swindon Night Shelter:

• A Community Mission on Saturday; we will be heading to their new warehouse for some serious sorting! It's one not to be missed and we need YOUR help! For more info and to sign up; check it out here!

• And then a 'Hump and Dump' task at the most welcoming Haven Day Centre next Tuesday - sign up here today!