On an unseasonable warm autumn evening, six runners from GoodGym Redbridge headed to East End to rake leaves and run 5km.

GoodGym Redbridge is based at Wanstead House Community Association, a charity organisation that puts on classes from astronomy and chess to yoga and creative writing - not at the same time, natch. It has a gorgeous garden but it is a lot of work for the staff. With the caretaker off sick it was time for GG Redbridge to step in and earn our keep.

With the regular group of Peter, Alice, Sarah, Tim and James joined by GoodGym first timer Beth no job was too large. Although the leaves hadn’t been cleared this year the team made light work of the front of the house filling black bins with the piles of leaves swept from the flowerbeds. A huge difference was made in only 45 minutes and the group should be proud of how much better the place looked. It’s true what they say, “many hands make light work”.

With the task complete and lots of nice comments from the people visiting the House for classes, Team Redbridge set off up Wanstead High Street to show Beth around on a 5km social run. On return James led a short static stretching session before sending everyone one their way.

And the big question. Was it worth it? Of course it was!

Same time next week. Look forward to seeing you there.