Various good folk from the Crystal Palace area were running a pop-up community hub event called "Help for Households" at the Upper Norwood Library. We've been there on Bromley Goodgym group runs several times, so this was nice chance to go in the daylight and see right round the building. The upper floor has a lovely hall area - the old "junior library" and "lecture room" - so it was just a question of rolling up sleeves and putting out tables and chairs and helping with the problem solving like .. why won't those window blinds stay up?

Today's Group Run was a bit of a moist one. We met at The Bridge House, welcomed (brand new to GG 🎉) Becca, and on a liquid theme, discussed our favourite flavours of soup...

Weeding at the House of Reading...

Our task was at Upper Norwood Library Hub, a pillar of the Crystal Palace community, hosting everything from book clubs to choirs (as we got to experience!). As a non-profit they rely on volunteers to support them, so we'd been drafted in to clear the car park of weeds and do some window cleaning too!

After a brief rain stop under a tree (featuring squats and treesits), we ran through the park to the Library and equipped ourselves with all the gear.

Steve, Nick, Mike and Becca handled all the weeds and brambles whilst Holly and I cracked on with cleaning the windows.

Gardening gloves were no match for these brambles... but we finished up with four bags of foliage and three pretty clean windows.

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The run back was littered with puddles to dodge but we made it back and stuck around for a quick bevvy in the pub.

Props to Becca for the pun - What an entrance!

Following last Tuesday's group run which featured a bunch of tools, tonight's run featured many-a-plank and also lots of other things - more on that later...

A chilly January's evening saw 6 GoodGymmers (including for her first Group Run, Ebru! Welcome! 🎉) meet at the Bridge House to firstly discuss what type of fish they'd be (Ian would undoubtably be a barracuda) before setting off for a warm up and 2km run up through the park.

The hills were navigated with aplomb and we met a very bright Katy at Upper Norwood Library Hub.

It'll be a quick task.

said Mark. It wasn't.

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We'd been asked to pile up a load of junk that was hanging out behind the sheds (like those naughty kids in school) so it could be taken away and disposed off. There was a big mix of stuff...:

🌲 A fake tree

📺 A big old TV

🤺 Fence panels

🏠 A For Sale sign

💡 Some very 'light' fluorescent tubes

And a whole lot of planks and wooden boards.

It was all hidden behind a mysterious fence and red curtain. Luckily Katy's ingenious idea of tying it back with some plastic and Stephen's knot tying skills meant it didn't get in the way any more!

After 30 minutes and a seriously good workout we'd managed to clear the bulk of it. 💪

We took a longer 3km route back (thankfully mostly downhill and finished off with a stretch).

Ace work gang 💥

The weather has definitely taken a turn for the cold 🥶 so we started our run talking about our favourite way to get warm. We had responses from press-ups to hot baths! Only one of those would work on a GoodGym group run. 😉

Thankfully we managed to keep pretty warm, as we ran up through the park, past some disturbing Lightopia creatures and did our task at Upper Norwood Library Hub.

Painting the fence...

Our equipment was left out for us (hence the pun - thanks Ian!), although we were a little limited with a small pot of paint, and some brushes which were too big to fit in! Luckily we managed to make it work and we got through the paint, although we'll definitely need another trip in future to finish off!

Bagging the leaves...

Daniel from the Library had also left out some bags in case we had time to collect some leaves - and we did - 5 bagsful I believe!

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We wrapped up with a little wall-sit (and one emphasising great technique... see pics) and ran back down the hill!

• Nice one guys! * Great running from all but especially Katy who'd jogged up from Lambeth and Ian who'd already been for a run earlier! And thanks Kat for the armbands!!

Episode 3 of 4 out of our visits to Upper Norwood Library Hub, brought us part 1 of 2 paint jobs!

After meeting at the Bridge House, doing a quick warm up and then properly warming up by running up the hill, George, Nick and I met Katy (who'd run a cool 5k from Brixton 😎) round the back of the Library.

We'd previously done some ivy removal and bramble chopping back in order to get access to the fence which was due a new coat of paint!

Hoping for a bright colour, alas, we were given a pot of black paint (though not as black as vantablack), to coat the fence with.

Luckily we were gifted a nice set of brushes and we got to work, managing to cover a good 4 and a half sections of the fence. We even had a race to see who could paint 3 bars the quickest (Nick won 🥳).

When we were done, Katy ran back to Brixton to clock up a 10k, and Nick lives round the corner so me and George took a (particularly) dark route back through the park. 👻

Nice one guys :)

Tonight we were back at Upper Norwood Library Hub after starting to pull back the ivy a couple of weeks ago. They’ve got a fence they want painting but the foliage had gone a bit out of control…

We met up the Bridge House, (welcoming brand new to GG, Thomas 👏) and jogged up the hill to CP triangle.

We found our equipment left in one of the bins outside and got cracking. We finished the job in a cool 25 mins, shearing off some bigger bushes, trimming back the brambles and yanking up the ivy.

We bagged it all up, managing to avoid some of the thorns… and shot back down the hill to base.

Providing the weather is okay, we’ll be back there in a couple of weeks to do some painting!