No Rain No Gain

Tonight was a very special group run and

16

of us were lucky enough to be a part of it.

We had been to Westbourne House before, last year was the last time. Usually we would go to help tidy the outside areas of leaves and once we'd been to give one of their garden sheds a fresh coat of paint. Never interacting with the elderly residents. Well, tonight we were invited to take part in their games night, and it didn't disappoint!

The news had traveled far and wide and attracted the new faces in Phil and Janice. Two great new additions who we all hope come back again soon!

We also welcomed back Laurie and Keith for their second runs. Obviously last weeks task didn't scare them off! And we're very happy it didn't! Come back again and again guys!

We also had Lydia come and join us, the GoodGym pioneer in Bournemouth, who set it all up three years ago! Fresh off her Sunday Half Marathon conquest, rocking a sub 2 hour time with barely and prep!

Roshana was also back, having run her first 10k on Saturday and looking strong all the way to the finish!

Awesome to see you again Claire! So many lovely faces out there today, so much chatting and catching up going on that we usually forget we're running places!

It was only a short run to the care home, 1km each way. Nicky welcomed us in and soon the gang spread out amongst the tables, joining residents and introducing themselves.

One table was playing pairs with cards, another had a heated battle of connect 4 going on and the other table saw a gathering of literary geniuses trying to outdo each other in a game of Scrabble.

Lydia took the first round of Scrabble by storm, Neil coming a respectable 4th, Roshana 5th and Eileen in last, losing out to Big Jon and Jane. Little John was kindly keeping score for the table.

In the connect 4 game many took turns to dual up, all facing each other, some winning without even realising it! In the pairs game Caprice, Hannah and Janet were helping out and testing their memory skills...one round was particularly troublesome!

Abi, Janice and Lea tried their hand at some target practice with bean bags and a velcro target....Janice was suspiciously good at it....

Whilst most kept warm inside with tea and biscuits, Laurie, Marianne, Fredrika, Phil and Keith headed outside to do a little sweeping. Having collected most of the leaves, Fredrika used her keen eye to find even more stuff to clean up and soon they had the bag filled to the top!! Job done, they came inside to warm up and join in the fun.

The last round of scrabble had to be cut short as we were pushing to get back to Flirt for 8pm...but we did have time for a lovely group photo. Fingers crossed the friendly residents spread the word and more of them come and send time with us next time.

We're back again in November to host their monthly quiz, which should also be great fun!

Hope you all had a really rewarding evening and I hope that you know that you added some extra fun to some people's lives tonight, so I hope you feel great about yourself!

Hope you had a rewarding night too Sean!