We ran around 3km to mark up the Peace Garden and deliver morer leaflets for Croydon's Bring and Take sale in March

Positively tropical tonight - well compared to last week at least! Tonight we had a double task so after welcoming back Dom and Carl and a quick head count we headed off for a warm-up and then straight to the entrance of Park Hill Rec. Here we met Josi and Catherine from the Friends of Park Hill Rec who unlocked the gates and we headed in with them to the empty and slightly spooky dark park. Once we got to the beautiful walled garden at the top end of the park Josi and Catherine told us more about the week long Festival of Peace being held in Croydon in June which is following on from the successful Summer of Love Festival held last year in Wandle Park.

The plan is to create a garden of peace in one of the middle beds in the walled garden which will have around 12 separate areas for local groups to plant with flowers that represent peace to them. There will also be a performance area, wheelchair access and rosemary and lavender framing the space. To help with the costs of the work there will be some Crowdfunding where residents and companies will be able to sponsor a tile/brick with their name on it which will be laid in the garden - we are definitely going to have a GoodGym presence there. The exciting news for us was that Josi and Catherine are going to give us one of the 12 beds to plant a GoodGym peace garden so we need to get our horticultural thinking hats on!

So back to the main task itself. Using long pieces of string, wooden canes and spray paint we marked out where each bed would be and also the performance area - there was a lot of giggling so hopefully our lines were straight! Half way through the task 4 of the runners headed off to deliver 50 leaflets to nearby houses promoting the Bring and Take sale in Surrey Street market on the 17th of March and next week we will be heading back to the same house to pick up any bags of donations they leave out for us. For the eagled-eyed amongst you you may have noticed Jim is back and joining in with us after his long sabbatical with Dom.

We didn't have much time after our task and the very welcome hot drinks and biscuits supplied by Josi and Catherine so it was a quick round of Heads and Tails before we headed back to Solutions for our stretches and debrief.

Next Tuesday evening’s run will see us heading back to the Park Hill area to pick up the Bring and Take donations.