With Anji down south the task force had to step up and help out. Katie started the group run welcoming new runners Fai and Lucy – welcome both! Also Welcome back to Kate as it was her first run back since last year! We heard all about Andrew’s brush with fame at the mission (last Saturday)

Katy was in holiday mode with only 4 days to go till the summer holidays, so for the warm up we played a game where in pairs we had to run around and be first person in your pair to shout out a holiday destination starting with the letter Katy shouted. Many exotic places came up including our own Newcastle! (perfect staycation spot?)

We set off for our nearly 4km run to St Marks in Gateshead. Paul leading the way and Aimee and Katy back marking. This task was the rescheduled task for Equal Arts that we cancelled due to bad weather in June. Equal Arts are a great charity who are improving older people’s lives through creativity. At St Marks they also had some (very large and fluffy) hens as part of their hen power project!

Once we arrived we were joined by Charlotte and Ross. We all signed in and task owner Jill showed us the garden. We helped ourselves to gardening gloves and tools and everyone got stuck in with weeding and tidying. Rachel and Louise did the flowerbeds. Rachel found a dead bird on a coffin of paper, which was a little odd. Amy rescued a snail!

As we were about to leave the one of the staff members brought us jugs of juice to rehydrate us in the heat. Sufficiently hydrated we headed off back. We didn’t have a fitness task because it was a longer run this week, but we did run up plenty of hills! When we arrived back at the hotel Paul took us through some post run stretches.

Next week are spoiled for choice with not one, not two, but three community missions this week. (Wednesday evening is tidying up at Ouse burn farm), (Saturday you can marshal the northern pride parade), (Sunday is littering picking up northern pride), (read about it here).

We will be back next Monday at Hotel Indigo ready to (return to WERS) an amazing service that supports asylum seekers and refugees.

Happy Running! Aimee