Eleven amazing runners joined me in Brent, fought the urge to go and see some fireworks, ran 4km, litterpicked, acted as public service announcers and built 75 new homes for the London bat population!

On a weirdly mild night for November a wonderful group gather in Willesden Green ready to give up their evening for the good of others. We said “hello again” to Fi back after a looooong injury break and “welcome” to Jenni and Larissa who were visiting from our neighbours GG Ealing!

Welcome to Brent

With a quick intro and delivering the big news of the week that it’s the LAST social of the year this Thursday we counted ourselves off and then headed on for a short run towards Roundwood Park.

We met Jack just outside the park, which was going to be our base for the evening as we prepared five bat boxes for Jack. We split into groups working on the boxes and Jack showed everyone the template he had made up and off we went.

Bat-boxers

With a larger group than expected a few of us split off from the bat-boxers to litter pick in the surrounding area. During the time we were working we lost count of the number of people who asked us whether were going to be doing fireworks tonight. With Brent usually hosting their fireworks at Roundwood park, it fell to us to let everyone know that sadly the fireworks had moved to Wembley and been the night before - sorry everyone!

We spent a good hour working hard to get the boxes done and the end result was great. Five perfectly formed homes that could house up to 15 bats each!

Bat-tastic!

With all done we posed for a group photo and said our good-byes to Jack. With that it was time for the run back, everyone kept up a good pace and we were back at the Queensbury and all stretched off by 8.30pm! A great night – thanks for coming!

Sign up here for next week, task to be confirmed and don’t forget the social on Thursday!

Cheers, Pritesh