This evening we welcomed lots of lovely new people and celebrated Tess's 50th run. What a good start!

We had two cracking tasks this evening - the shorter run was led by Beth. Here's what she had to say about it:

Following some confusion about where the woodchip had been delivered, we headed to Loughborough Junction farm to meet Karen and to help spread woodchip around the paths at the farm. We utilised anything we could find to move the woodchip, a couple of wheelbarrows, buckets and even a plastic bag. After about half an hour of shoveling, wheeling and spreading the pile was gone and any last bits swept up. With time to spare John lead us in a quick fitness session which required us to do impressions of rockstars, frogs and skiers.

The rest of us headed 4km up to Streatham to help the fantastic family support charity, St. Michael's Fellowship. They had loads more clothing donations for babies and toddlers that needed sorting into packs before being distributed to local families who need them. Everyone set about their spring, summer, autumn and winter collections with aplomb and loved being in such a positive space.

Do these shorts go with this top? Asked Andy. NO! Said everyone.

On return to base we enjoyed some stretches and bake off delights from Katie (that's me!) and the elusive Jay who got up at 5am to bake his. Now that's commitment!

This evening saw a BONANZA edition of lovely new people and some equally lovely old-timers - so much so that we had FORTY-SEVEN runners on this somewhat balmy November evening. WOWEEE! Luckily we had just the task for so many hands - we were heading to Myatt's Fields to support the small team there with leaf collection. This time of year, thousands upon thousands of leaves fall from the trees and park gardener Taye has the thankless task fo trying to clear them all up. What he needed was FORTY-SEVEN runners to help him out. WHAT LUCK!

I wish I had forty-seven runners to help me out! Said Taye

On arrival, we headed down to the tennis courts and one team set about clearing leaves from inside the courts. Everyone else gathered leaves from flower beds surrounding the lovely bandstand area. Huge bags were filled up with the autumnal debris and were taken to a hidden away area, where a natural compost heap was formed, for them to rot away over the months. Hooray for nature.

When we had finished, everyone got into pairs and played a best of three squat knee fencing competition. Tactics varied wildly but everyone tested their quads in the process.

After we ran back to base, we enjoyed some delicious lemon drizzle cake from Jim and yummy biscuits from Iona. DELISH!