12 fantastic runners joined me in Haringey to run over 5km to help out Lorenco House with some serious garden work

I would like to say that I welcomed everyone, ran through the wonderful ways that you can do with GG, talked about the task and went through the health and safety run down and even covered the news…however, with a huge 10 minutes spent at traffic lights on the cycle up to Haringey I arrived at a bout 18:59. Huge thanks to Nurjehan who signed everyone in and did all of the above for me. TaskForce to the rescue! Incidentally, big big GG welcome to Kemmi and Mike who were here for the first time! Hurrah!

Stationery time

Once I did finally arrive we got everyone moving, did a quick intro and Sarah took the party pace group off! The rave pace group (we might need to work on these names) did a few more warm-up exercises and then I let Dave lead the way – how nice I am!

Rave pace arrived just a minute or so before the party pace team and we were all welcomed by Gerald at Lorenco house. He explained that this was an assisted living residence for older people with learning difficulties. After a quick tour (hello £10,000 fish tank!) we were shown the task at hand! We had a massive planter to line and fill with soil, as well as some planting and solar lamp placement.

Blooming L

We split into three teams – the Lining team, the Lifting team and the Lights team! Everyone took to their jobs with aplomb and before we knew it we showed Gerald and his team what GG are all about. Kemmi, it turns out, was an expert leader and carefully guided, Mike, Ella, Nurjehan to a superb job lining the planter. Dave, Latoya, Veronika and Alex wasted no time shifting 50 heavy bags of soil with great speed – impressive! Rhiannon, Sarah, Julie and Freya expertly placed out the lights whilst working with the resident cat and showed some impressive agility jumping a not so small fence!

With five minutes to go and the final tacks in place to line the planter we told Gerald we were going to go all hands on deck to fill the planter full with soil. He had his doubts but GG Haringey are not ones to mess about and with incredulous speed and co-ordinated teamwork the planter was full to the brim! Wonderful work everyone!

Super Haringey

With a group photo done we split into our respective groups, waved our goodbyes and promised to come back for more jobs and before we knew it we were back at the pool, doing our stretched and going home tired but satisfied at another smashing session!

Pennie is back next week – get signed up for her penultimate session as GG Haringey leader!

Thanks as ever for having me and hope to see you all soon!

Cheers
Pritesh