A spritely bunch of GoodGymmers gathered at the Print House, where we welcomed Paige back for her 2nd run and Nick for his first ever group run with GoodGym Newham. We were honoured to be his task of choice to celebrate his 500th good deed, particularly as Nick is not so often spotted running with GoodGym groups, having mostly worked his way to such a substantial number through various missions to help older isolated people. Shopping for example – he now knows the Waitrose at the Brunswick Centre like the back of his hand. Anyway, very well done Nick!

On to tonight’s Random Weekly Question: “If you won AU$20,000 worth of travel vouchers in a raffle, where would you go?” South East Asia seems pretty popular, with Paul expressing an interest in going to Thailand and just staying there for a year. Paige and Rosa were quite similarly inclined, but with a bit more travelling in the region and maybe over to Australasia. Graham wants to go to Japan and Nick would like to see more of South America. I’d love to do the Trans-Siberian Railway, but maybe not right now… Later on the run Eugene told me he’d like to go to Tanzania, and then work his way down to South Africa. All sound great – we just need to find a half marathon in one of those places and away we go!

Then we were off down the Greenway (sadly now with diversion in place ☹) to Plaistow Primary School where we were met by Deputy Head Rosie. Two main tasks to get on with (some compost turning will have to wait for another time) – to move a pile of mud from one place to another place, and to weed some of the beds that the children have been using to grow veg. Eugene, Rosa, Graham, Nick and Paul got on with the former – the mud pile was used for play by the children, but it had been there for a while and now they need some fresh mud to play in (or something like that). It was a lot, as the pictures show! Paige and I cleared out quite a few of the beds so that they’ll be ready for planting again and it was great to hear that the kids do actually like eating what they’ve grown. Rosie, of course, did a bit of both tasks and supervised.

We pottered back to the Print House for a celebratory OJ and lemonade, well done everyone! Hope to see you at next week’s task, where we'll be heading up to Hackney Marshes Adventure Playground, or if any of you fancy a parkrun on Saturday, I’ll be at Mile End.