The apricity of the day was not lost on us when 8 of us got together at Valentines Parkrun. Four of us volunteered, Sharon at the Boathouse, where the 2nd lappers and finishers need to go in different directions, Ed was in his usual carpark spot and Linda was VI supporter. The volunteer roster was surprisingly full so AJ chose to flit between Ed and Sharons posts, when they got busy, the others chose to run instead.

As AJ is not often in the country we then moved on for a sociable coffee and catch up at the local spoons.

Lovely having everyone together, looking forward to the next one.

The Green King pub chain sets up a #tub2pub challenge every year, inviting people to drop off their (empty) tubs from the different chocolate selections consumed over the festive period.

These will be recycled and money donated to MacMillan support.

As the pictures show, Linda was definitely more successful than me... I blame it on a weeks leave after New year, stopping me from rescuing more tubs at work!

Very much hydrated and fed I made my way to the West End Donor Centre, only to find the door locked and lights out.

A knock on the door did get attention - turns out a water pipe had burst, ground floor out of action. Unfortunately it also impacted on the 1st floor, with a lack of water to wash or flush. So all appointments were cancelled.

What is a man to do than to pop round the corner to the pub to hide from the rain, in the company of the #ThursdayMurderClub? Open fire was a nice surprise

A new year, same favourite task - Babybank is back!

So some of the usual suspects gathered at Wanstead House to welcome the lovelyNavratti for her first ever Goodgym experience.

After and initial chat Navratti, James & Linda set off while I waited a few more minutes to see whether Sher would make it down as well. sadly this wasn't the case so I chased the other three down to the babybank, where Natalie and later Jo made their own way to.

It seemed the Christmas break had put some things out of sequence, the lovely laminated labels to separate the age ranges were nowhere to be found. But luckily host Adam found post-it notes!

As always, the amount of bags waiting seem daunting but once again just under the hour all were sorted and it was time to pack up and put all away in the main room for others to do part 2 of the process.

Thanks all for joining in on quite short notice - next sessions are being planned, details to follow

Three of us assisted at Valentines Parkrun today. James was on scanning, Linda VI walker and Ed on Car Park duty.

Valentines is busier now due to Alphabeteers collecting their Vs now Victoria Dock has closed due to lack of vounteers. This illustrates the need for people to volunteer if we are to keep our parkruns going.

Linda assisted a visually and physically impaired person round Valentines parkrun course. Usually his guide dog assists him well enough but he likes to take the dog off the harness to give them occasional off duty time so Linda took over the dog's lead, the guide duties and the picking up the nasties 🙄 Meanwhile Ed did a sterling job of directing traffic coming in and out of the carpark across the route and cheering on the park runners.