It's the time of year when some of us look forward to putting up the Xmas decorations, and we were all set, Louise even brought her Santa hat to partake in the festive task. The 4 of us helped out at the hub with a variety of different tasks, including moving furniture and general bits and bobs in order to prepare the space for the Christmas fair at the weekend. We managed to get in a lovely festive photo in (not so Santa's grotto) once we were finished.

NEW LOCATION! 🎉 We headed to Churchfields Recreation Ground in west Beckenham for this session to meet Amanda, who leads a group aiming to make the park look a little nicer. Starting out from Bridge House, we first of all did our intros - this week's question, Which is your favourite bank holiday? (since we missed our Group Run last week). We had a nice spread - Easter, August Bank Holiday, May!

We took off east, unusually for us, and explored some new streets in Penge, crossing over Maple Road and the tram line to get to Churchfields Road, completing a cool 2.1km in the muggy evening air.

Amanda had a dream that the entrance to the park would look a lot more inviting with neatly edged paths, and the playground would be free of litter. GoodGym Bromley were only happy to make this dream come true, so we picked up tools from her well organised cart and got to work.

Fiona, James, David and I edged some paths, while Millie and Molly collected litter, with Catherine and Hannah tackling weeds using trowels.

As the light drew and the clock struck 8, we tidied up and enjoyed some flapjacks kindly provided for our hosts, then heading back via the main road to Bridge House for another 2km on the board.

Amanda was super pleased with our help and we're sure to return to Churchfields soon ❤️

Tonight we had another lovely sunset run / walk to the Crystal Palace water tower where John split us into two groups: one excavating the delicate clay pipes running around the perimeter of the water tower base and the other clearing away the last of the foliage towards the back of the base. We made some interesting discoveries as we cleared, including a massive spider and a decades old crisp packet which sadly still hadn't disintegrated :(

As ever, the conversation was varied - from race day strategies for the Big Half in two weeks' time to favourite sweet condiments (Maltesers spread is now firmly on my list to try!)

A sudden and unexpected rain shower brought our session to an abrupt end, but not before we'd made good progress with our tasks. Have included a couple of before and after photos with this post - excellent work team!