All in all it's just a-nother book on the shelf

With an air of defiance on a grey day, 26 of Lewisham's most positive people took to the streets, covering 5km of running (and hill repeats), painting walls in dusky 'Denim Drift', shifting and dusting shelves, packing books and deciding whether a book about HTML was still relevant in these challenging times.

There was definitely something in the air in Lewisham this week. No, not the heavy pollution that we keep hearing about, but a great, shiny glow of newness, with five new people joining us for this week's group run. Lovely. We opened our arms and hearts to Deirdre, Kirsty, Ellen, Sara and Florence. We also said a big hello to Dom, who was on tour from GoodGym Croydon and Zofia, who was paying us a visit from Barnet (we hope they liked our SE style!).

Lucky Maya bagged herself some red laces for bringing a friend (Zofia) and I must remember to give Conroy his laces for bringing a friend the other week. You too could be sporting red laces - just bring a friend in February and I'll make sure those laces are yours!

Warming up was fun, with a game of 'Chain It', where the tagged person joins hands and so on, until there is a big old chain. Handy this, as our next game involved two lines facing each other so, with our ready-made line in place, we had an almost seamless segue. Our two lines took it in turns to perform various dynamic drills, alternated with some short, sharp sprints. All good, breathtaking stuff.

Last week, we were all set to finish the work we started at Crofton Books, but sadly, we had to postpone due to illness. No worries though, because we were able to jiggle our diaries to make our return this week. Our lively group traversed the streets of Ladywell and Brockley, to arrive full of enthusiasm and energy and ready to make a difference. Thank you, as always, to our wonderful back-markers, who bring up the rear, making sure nobody gets left behind. On duty this week were Sean and George, with a bit of help from Conroy.

At the library and bookshop, Jason had enlisted the help of his friend Helen, who gathered a few people and swept them off to the basement, where they sorted through books and attempted to find the parts to build some more shelves...lots of big bits, but none of the little, but essential fixing bits, so that will be a job for another time. On the shop floor, we had:

Team Clean - An intrepid group of determined dusters, carefully and meticulously removing books, dusting shelves, then replacing books exactly where they came from.

Team Sort and Shift - Gathering and sorting through donations, putting them in boxes and then stacking the boxes, out of harm's way.

Team Paint - Stylishly attired, in the latest blue bin bag look, reaching and dabbing, sweeping and rolling, to try and reach those, as yet, unreached areas of the bookshop walls.

Team Geek - Using their extensive knowledge of technology, to decide which donated computer books were up-to-date enough to sell on.

Phew, that's a lot going on!

As ever, we had our countdown, with the last few minutes being a whirlwind of tidying and replacing and a lot of shouting ('Get down from that ladder Conroy!'), before Jason thanked everyone for their hard work and we left him in peace.

Hilly McHill-Hill

Regulars will know, that no trip to Crofton Books is complete without a bit of hill action over at Hilly Fields. So off we went, giving a little nod to the trees we gathered last Monday, yet to be collected and recycled and found ourselves at the top, admiring the stunning view of London in one direction and Kent in the other. A view like this doesn't come without a bit of work, so this week's focus was not only on the up-hill drive, but also on the down-hill action. For our hill repeats, we ran hard down, with our recovery being up. Our focus was on that lovely feeling of falling with gravity, allowing it to pull you down the hill and not 'putting on the brakes'. It was great to see the difference on each repeat, as runners responded to a little direction each time (high knees, light feet, driving arms...). Well done to everyone, hills are hard, but they are so worth it!

Our last hill took us up and over and towards the joy of Ellerdale Road, that takes us all the way to our start point, with the help of gravity. We stretched, we chatted and we steadied our heart rates. Here, we heard about this week's GoodGym social and next week's task - sign up to both and get a double dose of goodness!