For our last group run of 2018, 22 runners covered 5k and helped dig, shift, sweep and gather at Beecroft Garden Primary School.

Thank you once again to the punmeister, Oli, for this week's title and some puns within this report. He should probably get the award for most commitment to punning in 2018...

We've had a bumper weekend of festive missions, with Emma and Monica helping an older person with their garden and Tom, Marta, Nykolette and Conroy helping at a community mission, distributing the King's Christmas Trees...where Nykolette took her commitment to another level. Ahem.

Well done to Oli, who bagged himself a Hilly Fields parkrun PB, hot on the heels of his New York Half-Marathon last weekend. Great work!

Brick and tired

After some knee-tag fun and drills to warm our bodies (it's getting hard to plan a warm-up or fitness session that doesn't cause people to fall over!), we ran up and over to Crofton Park, with our wonderful back-markers, Caireen and Marta keeping us together - thank you. As we arrived, we were greeted by a gorgeous ginger cat, who seemed wholly unconcerned by 20+ bouncy people wandering in (cue me having absolutely no resistance to picking him up for a cuddle). The Sensory Garden is coming along nicely and we could see the steps now taking shape, but there was plenty more digging to be done.

Christmas sledging

With our most eager diggers grabbing gloves and tools, another group waited patiently to lift and shift the heavy soil to the sacks, a great upper-body workout! A smaller team worked swiftly on breaking up a twiggy branch, snapping and twisting...and chatting, whilst around the front, Jo and Olivia worked on leaf-clearance with a junior helper. Time ticked by quickly, with the bash, bash, bash of sledge hammer on brick helping everyone keep time, like a very well behaved chain gang!

Once tools were put down, Gemma's son proudly announced that they had festive treats for us and everyone made their way over to enjoy mulled wine, mince pies and delicious fruit - thank you so much, what a treat! I felt a little mean breaking up the Christmas party, but we did have to run! With a glow in our cheeks and a smile on our faces, we made our way back to Glass Mill, for a festive-themed fitness session, that of course involved 'Fiiiiiive bu-urr-pees!'

Well done everyone on an amazing year - it's our third birthday in a few weeks, so we will do a proper round-up of the year then - and I look forward very much to seeing you all again for our first run of 2019, on January 7th. In the meantime, keep running (there are parkruns as normal and additional runs on Christmas Day and New Year's Day) and do get in touch if you need a few words of encouragement!

See you in 2019!