What a dreadful evening! Well done to all the hardy souls who still made it out in the rain this evening, and a very warm (and soggy!) welcome to our brave newcomers James and Alison (go and give them both a cheer!). It was great to see Vic this evening, to celebrate her amazing achievement of first lady at the Petts Wood 10k over the weekend. And Medal Monday continued, with Jenny (who we welcomed over from Greenwich) who ran, or rather swam through the mud, of the Wimbledon Common half over the weekend too!

Despite the task being just around the corner from our starting point at Glass Mill, we took the 'scenic' route up Lewisham Hill to stretch our legs a little, and raise those heart rates!

After a 6-year stay in their temporary accommodation, Glebe Court were thrilled to have finally moved back into their permanent home on Blackheath Rise this week. Worth the wait - their new place is absolutely lovely, with many of us commenting how much it felt like a swanky hotel. As with any house move however, there were still plenty of boxes to move, and many more to unpack - plenty of upper body work to tackle!

Can you be-Glebe it - they're finally back in!

Once the boxes of boxes had been unpacked and re-packed with various cleaning and kitchen supplies, we had sufficient space to move the beds stored at the back of the garage back into the main house.

Getting bedded in

Jenni was super pleased with how much we managed to sort out, and moving the boxes and beds into their rightful places will provide a good prompt to carry on unpacking. We hope to be back at Glebe Court in the near future to spread some festive cheer and help them put up their Christmas decorations!

Thanks to Caireen for backmarking on the way out, and to Sarah for keeping us together on the way back. As mentioned during our cool-down, there are some great looking community missions coming up this week, helping out at a pop-up kitchen in Woolwich on Friday and planting bulbs in Forest Hill on Sunday.

See you again soon!

It was another rainy Monday evening in Lewisham and a smaller than normal group of Lewisham’s finest arrived in the foyer of Glassmill ready for an evening of doing good!

It was a quiet weekend for news apart from a birthday parkrun and a community mission at Crofton Books, putting up the bunting reading for Croft Fest.

We headed outside into the rain and played a game of “everybody’s it” (after some interesting explaining of how the game worked - I promise these make sense in my head) involving squats and starjumps. Then it was off to Crofton Books, following virtually the same route as last week’s group run to Beecroft. Thanks for backmarking Chloe!

Once we arrived at Crofton Books, Jason began explaining the tasks that needing completing and wheeled out a suitcase and boxes full of books (full of classics) to be sorted and priced.

The tasks for the evening:

• cleaning the shelves of the bookshop
• organising various sections in the bookshop
• clearing/raking outside
• sorting and pricing the boxes of books
• saving/sorting/separating some books that had been water damaged from a leak in the ceiling
• organising Jason’s secret area of books/office area

It’s always a lovely task that everyone can get stuck into and there’s always lots of chatter.

As always some classic books were found including the Good Housekeeping Guide to Easy Entertaining in which everything looking slightly undercooked in the pictures and a bargain to cook. And a book on dogs which was given to me to find the animal section which I’m afraid I never did find!

It was time for a tough decision - extra time getting the tasks done or hill repeats in the rain....hill repeats was the clear winner!! I joke, everyone suddenly had lots of jobs to complete!

It was time to round everyone up and get in place for a group photo, after multiple group photos with multiple phones, we headed out of Crofton Books into some misty rain!

With nearly everyone except 5 of us peeling off to go home on our way back to Glassmill and me hitting my elbow on a bin and Martin falling over a bench (just as we were saying how these benches are so hidden), we finally made it back to Glassmill to stretch and near enough of one piece even if down on numbers.

Big thanks to Sarah for bringing the lovely cookies, they were thoroughly enjoyed by everyone!

This evening there is a community mission at GRACE, sorting clothes as they have a large shipment that needs sorting to be sent out. I can’t wait to hear what delightful (or undelightful) things you find in the donated bags!

Pat yourselves on the back for being part of such a big group of happy runners this evening - it was fantastic to see so many smiling faces turn up in spite of this evening's questionable weather! And a massive welcome to our veritable troop of first time runners - go and give them all a cheer - Luke, Claire, Polly, Raya and Katie (who gets an extra special mention for being dragged along for an evening of being told what to do by her big sister - which sounds a lot like most of our childhood!).

When we finally arrived at Chelwood Nursery (after only a mild diversion - thanks for backmarking this evening and keeping us all together Chloe), we achieved a huge amount this evening, even in the playground's gloomy conditions...

What's long, brown and sticky?

An entire hazelnut tree was felled (before the nuts have chance to grow, avoiding unwanted allergic reactions in the playground), chopped up into bits, stripped of leaves, and the resulting sticks were sorted into varying size categories ready to be used for... den-making! Just think of the hours of fun you've all contributed to in preparing den-making equipment (and the hours of fun you probably had making dens back when you were younger)!

They call it Nutbush city limits

Another hardy group ventured round the back of Chelwood's swanky new building to clear up some of the remaining building materials. It was tough work moving lots of heavy planks and shovelling rubble in the dark (it did look a bit like prison camp back there), but totally worth it to discover the nursery's long-lost story-telling penguin - on top of the den-making and the teeny tiny rakes, this evening's cute levels were off the scale.

Can you twig it?!

That's not even the end of it! An extensive weeding campaign was carried out, with Chloe, Martin and Sarah (who did her 50th good deed this evening, hoorah - more cheers needed please!) delicately foraging for weeds in between the strawberry and pumpkin plants (check the size of that pumpkin!). Tom did a sterling job watering the bamboo plants (yes, even in the rain), whilst Laura and Polly hunted down escaped smooth pebbles using only their sense of touch (like dolphins apparently, which are known for their highly developed sense of touch due to the nerve endings in their skin - who knew!).

"We're like dolphins!" - Polly

Fuelled by bananas, we set off back to Glass Mill taking the "scenic" route via a sprint up Hilly Fields (it would be rude not to!). Thanks to keeping us together. Don't forget to check out this Saturday's community mission planting bulbs at St Mary's Primary School in Lewisham, and get yourself signed up for next week's fizz and cake bonanza to celebrate adding the finishing touches to the Sensory Garden at Beecroft Garden Primary School.

Happy running!

P.S. Please excuse the really dark photos! 😬 P.P.S Thanks for the puns Oli!