**Tonight wasn’t just a normal group run, instead of us all kitted out in our usual running attire tonight we all donned our Xmas special. Some walked some took the bus but we were all heading in the same direction.

A few of us started in a local public house while a sensible few headed straight to the restaurant. However we all ended up in the same location by 7:15, a few stragglers had to finish their drinks before coming to the restaurant. We kicked off the evening with a mini quiz with questions relating to GoodGym and some more close to home evolving around what we have achieved in GoodGym Croydon during the year. There were three teams in the quiz and although there was a clear winner there was no losers. Congratulations to the team of Paul, Jenny, Magda, Dovile and Martin despite not realising the the difference between “how many and list the names” you somehow manage to beat the other two teams by 1 point.

In between our three courses we were entertained by Xmas cracker jokes, pass the spud and the main event exchanging of gifts. Although there wasn't much running we were throughly hydrated.

Best Xmas jumper on the night award goes to Peter, he pulled no punches he ensured that he was lit with all the fairy lights.

Flittering around from table to table and the comments received In the WhatsApp group I am happy everyone had a good time, thank you all for making tonight great without you all it wouldn’t have been possible.

Massive thanks to the staff of Atesh, for putting up with us and our joyful noise and a massive shout out to all who were able to attend. Nicola get well soon we knew you wanted to be with us but due to being under the weather you were unable to join us.

Don't forget this weekend's volunteering at Lloyd Park Junior Parkrun go help the kids get in the Xmas spirit, they'd love to see some elves

Next week will be our last group run for the year and we will be visiting ECCO, looking forward to seeing you all at our last run and if Nicola is feeling better we’ll be heading for a drink after sign up here.

Before signing off I'll share Andy's fun fact he learnt in the Pub.

An earlier interpretation of the colours was, "hardships there are but the land is green and the sun shineth" as stated in the government Ministry Paper 28 - National Flag dated 22 May 1962. Gold recalls the shining sun, black reflects hardships, and green represents the land. It was changed in 1996 to black representing the strength and creativity of the people which has allowed them to overcome difficulties, gold for the wealth of the country and the golden sunshine, and green for the lush vegetation of the island, as well as hope.