They say you can't have your cake and eat it too. I think we positively dispelled that archaic proverb. 24 folk rolled up last night on a picturesque evening Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. We trotted an easy run, fired off some HIT efforts, did a mulch-itude (credits Rosie) of labour intensive tasks and concluded with pizza, gherkins, drinks and a chinwag. It seems you can have it all, sometimes.

Rosa, Vika, Asia and Myles rocked up to partake in the volunteer-train-party combo. Hope you guys had a good first session, it normally doesn't take up all of your evening, but for the occasional social. Nice to have you part of the team.

RWQ courtesy of James "what's your most used emoji?" Ostensibly a frivolous question, but actually more insightful than most of our normal icebreakers. Several positive 'thumbs up' and 'smiley faces', showing the general disposition of the squad. A 'fist bump' for the street cred, a 'flexed bicep' for motivation, a 'nauseous face' for our pregnant hero, 'winks' for the cheeky, 'nail painting' cos it's sassy, 'flamenco dancer' for the partaay, ...and a tonne others.

The HIT work flew by, starting on a bit of leg overload, then onto some core based work, 4min of effort in total. We can all squeeze that in here and there. Good way to finish an easy run if looking for some variation and strength.

Ange welcomed us to the playground and explained the story behind the massive rescue boat, plonked right at the entrance to the playground. Those kids are lucky, with plans to modify it in the near future, look forward to watching that come along. We had several groups owning their patch, the mulch shifters dug and wheel-barrowed with purpose, the tree trimmers cleared a vast area in no time, the soil shifters grafted hard in the outer depths and the pole diggers ripped out the...pole, of course. Top effort one and all.

The pizza oven has some explaining to do, took a bit longer than it should, but everyone was patient and cracked on with crisps and glaring into the fire. Graham decided to fry his pizza...in the fire, not a conventional method to my knowledge, but bugger convention, it worked, hat's off to that man. Next time you see Ange thank her for the awesome display of generosity and time, she bloody loves you guys and likes to show it.

Next week we've got a new task over at West Ham Park, thanks to 'GoodGym Mum' also known as Sharon. We'll be back in the mulch game, helping with their educational garden space. See below:

"The Wildlife Garden was created by volunteers in 2018 for outdoor learning and forest schools sessions. It forms a key learning space for the Wild Schools outdoor education sessions in West Ham Park which has had over 12,000 local primary children attending sessions since the project began in October 2016."

Sign up for next week here y'all. Have a groovy weekend and tick off some longer lush runs in the sun.

See you fine folk in 6 days

B