New week, new task, new location and new runners. Richmond GoodGym might be nearly one year old, but we’re still keeping it fresh. Fresh as a lick of new paint, in fact, which is what we had to give some garden benches at Cecil Court Care Home in Kew.

But before all that, Mark had us warm up in the square, as if he hadn’t noticed the heatwave and that just sitting still in a chair was enough to make us sweat. ‘Feeling warm?’ he asked after he’d drilled us in some press ups and side planks in the midst of 33 degree temperatures. Did he think he was funny? Yes, we replied, just in case it wasn’t a rhetorical question and he felt inspired to warm us up a little bit more.

Feeling warm?

Then we were off, a 3km sprint from Richmond to Kew Green, passing the leafy Kew Gardens and a few inviting looking pubs along the way. As we waited outside the Care Home for our runners to re-group, the gates creaked slowly open entirely of their own accord in classic spoof haunted house fashion. Fortunately, the only other thing in keeping with the haunted house theme was the number of spider webs we had to dust off the benches before we set about sprucing them up with some bright blue paint.

Quite a satisfying task we all agreed, even though we really wanted another 30 minutes so we could start a second coat. Cecil Court – we may be back…

Big welcome to our new faces – Stephen, Katie, KiKi, Bryony and Hollie – and a round of applause to everyone for beating the heat and bringing a little bit of cheer to the residents’ garden. You are all too good to be blue!