And we would do 500 deeds, and we would do 500 more...

It was time to bring back out our reclaimed Proclaimers song 500 Deeds tonight as we smashed through our January target! Woohoo! Even more impressively, it was on this freezing cold night. Despite spending the afternoon watching sleet and grey skies, it dried up just in time for 40+ hardy souls to still gather, unperturbed by a little bit of wet weather. It was great to see so many new faces tonight: welcome to Dominic, Olivia, Samuel and Hattie who all joined us for the first time. Hope to see you all again very soon!

...Just to be the group who had done 500 deeds arriving at Felix Road's door

The group split into two with Danica taking half who sped round Bristol and arrived ahead of the 'faster' group. We arrived to be met by a the shocked Felix Road team at how many people had turned out even in the cold, dark night! The tasks that they were planning on getting us to do were at the last-minute no longer available for us so we had to get inventive to set all the hands to work.

• The litter-pickers and recyclers went out in force, covering the whole playground super quickly.
• The weeders and de-bramblers donned running gloves, rubber gloves or whatever they could find to get stuck in pulling out weeds and brambles from around the playground.
• The sorters got all Marie Kondo on the firepit area and made it look spectacular!
• The cleaners and tidiers turned the havoc-filled painting room into a clean and tidy haven ready for the children tomorrow.

Ok, so we have done the litter pick - now what about the pick n mix?

After all of that, Zoe from FRAP made herself the most popular task-owner of the moment by producing a pile of one-penny sweets which the group got their all-important sugar-high for sprinting back to base on. To make full use of said sugar-high, we played a game of Hare and Hounds. Danica led the Hares away. They were meant to have a three-minute headstart, but the Hounds stayed true to their name and got distracted by the food at the task. With a slightly longer time to make up, the Hounds followed suit. However, traditionally in this game of animal instinct, I am sure traffic-lights do not play quite so big a part. Between the stops at the traffic lights, both groups set a good pace all the way back. Although some of the Hounds sprinted to give the Hares a close run for their money, the Hares did an excellent job of getting back untouched!

Big thank you to Danica for excellent Run Leading and Clo and Maria for backmarking tonight!