Climbing the walls to divide and conquer…don’t it make your brown(ie) eyes blue?

Monday night must have been ‘national work late’ night. Having booked us up for a double task, Mark was looking a little nervous at the number of last minute drop outs pinging their apologies on WhatsApp. But by headcount time, we were a comfortably sized bunch of 11 and ready to tackle whatever lay ahead.

Warm up was made more than usually entertaining courtesy of a young lad joining in, lured no doubt by our fabulous swivelling hips and shimmying shoulders (maybe he watches Strictly with his mum). He was game enough to lead us for a few lunges from the centre of our red shirt circle and bowed out to warm applause, looking positively chuffed with himself. He might be our youngest recruit.

Then it was off on our run, head torches bobbing in the dark, flat and fast all the way to Mortlake where our group split into two teams to divide and conquer our double task for two great organisations in our community. One group headed off to paint the Brownie hall a vibrant blue, and the other to Thomson House School for some weeding and tidying. It was a hard call whether the better deal was had by the crew at the Brownies with their tray of juice and homebakes awaiting their arrival, or by the school crew with their fresh mugs of hot tea straight from the staff room. Either way, Mortlake served us all well with refreshments.

Having blasted through our task, Mark channelled his inner David Bailey and had us pose for photos, first of all crowding round Jeremy’s motorbike like an advert for auto trader and then literally climbing the school playground wall so we could poke our heads over to say hello to our fellow taskers at the Brownies whilst Mark papped us from below. If this one doesn’t win photo of the week, I don’t know what will…

Our work done, we waved goodbye to our friendly task owners and headed back into the night towards Wholefoods.

And now all that remains is to welcome Jill and Caroline, our two lovely first time runners – do come back and join us again.

Great feedback already from the lovely Jeremy at Thomson House School "Really can't thank you and the guys from Goodgym enough for all your hard work and help in making my life a little easier and the playground tidier. Thanks again from all at Thomson House"

Get ready for a spoooooooky task next week for Halloween. (Mark’s worst kept secret: Mark: “I didn’t think anyone knew anything about the task next week but everyone keeps coming up and saying they’re really looking forward to it.” Jenna: “You put it on the website.” Mark: “Oh yeah…”) Fancy dress positively encouraged. Drinks at The Orange Tree afterwards for an overdue social.