My GoodGym day in North London continued this evening as I joined Paul to help steward at Stephens House and Gardens' Winter Lights event.

As I'm not a regular Barnet runner, Paul gave me a brief rundown of this fantastic charity. Essentially, the House and Gardens were left in trust for the people of Finchley by Henry "Inky" Stephens. Inky made his name in indelible ink (hence the apt moniker), and was equally keen to leave his mark on society through various philanthropic acts. Although the Gardens are open to the public, as they're not technically a public park, the trustees have to raise maintenance funding in other ways.

One of these ways was the event we were helping out at tonight; their Winter lights event. For this event, the groundstaff set up a load of lights around the gardens for children (& adults) to enjoy, and raised money by charging a small entry fee and running a café.

Paul had warned me in advance to wrap up warm, as the forecast was for cold and wet weather. I was glad of the warning, and truly believe that the five layers I donned for this event only just managed to keep me warm ❄️🌧️❄️ I don't really know how Paul coped dressed like he was as Santa, but I suspect the mulled wine helped🎅

There were a few other stewards helping out at the event, all of whom were extremely friendly and welcoming. Even more kindly, they let me work on welcoming customers to the event in a gatehouse to the gardens, which meant that I at least had some shelter from the elements ☺️ Santa/Paul stuck close, so that he could direct customers to where the lights could be found and also occasionally dodge the wind.

The weather had obviously decided to keep some people away, but a few hardy souls turned up to view the lights anyway. Luckily, a lot of people had pre-booked, so the trust will still raise some money from this event to go towards maintaining the grounds (they had more than double the number of pre-bookers than last year, so obviously they're doing something right!!) 😄

Halfway through my shift, I had a quick look around the lights, taking some pictures for the run report and generally freezing my fingers. As you can see, the ghosts of Christmas past (or Halloween) put in a special appearance for the evening to join in with the rest of the Christmas spirits 👻

As the last admission time drew near, I made my goodbyes to Paul and the rest of the team at Stephens House & Garden, thanking them for the hot drinks they provided throughout. I highly recommend helping out at this type of event in the future: the spirited company alone is definitely worth it! 😄