Have an ice day!

Nine of the nicest runners you could meet ran 3km, gave Melvin Hall a lick of paint and thrashed a fitness session.

With this being our last group run of 2017, we had the chance to reflect on what a wonderful six or so months we've had from our 'new' start point in Penge. I love our Tuesday evenings and look forward to seeing the friends I've made in that time. Did you know that this year GoodGym Bromley have completed a nice round 300 good deeds?! That's 300 tasks tackled, or coach visits done, or missions run, amazing! Well done all of you!

It's freezing. I know I'm stating the obvious, but that's just a little reminder while you (probably) read this from the warmth of your sofa, or under a duvet. It's freezing and these nine people still put on their red t-shirts and got out there (I'm doing fist-pumps here). We had added extra layers, that's for sure and we did make sure we weren't still for more than a few seconds and, as we ran down the High Street towards our task, we shouted 'Ice!' to each other, to make sure nobody went flying.

What's this song? I have no i-deer!

At Melvin Hall, we picked up where we had left off, everyone commenting on how well the room had dried and what a great job had been done so far. There were some glaringly obvious patches that needed our attention though, so out came the ladders to get to those hard-to-reach spots and on came the Christmas tunes to get us all in the mood. Due to my lack of Spotify Premium, it was a rather random selection, so we played a bit of 'Name That Singer', with Tim being quite knowledgeable, though maybe not when it came to Kylie. The Heroes (of course, what else?) were cracked open and Christmas was well and truly happening.

We grabbed our painting utinsels and got stuck in!

As our aim was to get every remaining bit of peach covered, Stephen and Rachael were determined to get to the very last bit, working together, ploughing on with determination, finishing just as time was up. Thank you to everyone for cleaning up the rollers, brushes and trays and leaving the space as we found it.

Well, we didn't want to leave a Christmess!

Now, how could we resist taking the Christmas theme to another level in our fitness session? Out came my list, revealing an alternative Twelve Days of Christmas (or 'Fitmas'?). My rather tuneless rendition informed everyone that, 'On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me a buuuuuuu-u-uu-ur-urpee!' Of course! 'On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me two inchworms...' and so on. You get the idea? Of course, in an ideal world and with an evening ahead of us, we would have worked all the way up and all the way back down, just like the song but, with the evening rolling by, we managed two whole rounds. Considering we did this inside, in all our layers, I think we deserve a cheer :)

Our run back up the hill kept us nice and warm and, while we stretched, we chatted about tomorrow night's Christmas social at our start point, the Bridge House and also about our first group run of 2018, on January 2nd (yes, really!), when we will return to the very special Living Well foodbank - incidentally, Living Well could do with some help next Wednesday, the 20th from 12.45, when they will be packing up to 120 Christmas bags for the users of the food bank.

Thank you all for an amazing six months, let's make 2018 even more wonderful!