Tea and symphony

Under a bright full moon, fourteen fabulous runners covered just under 3km and helped sort through and label donations at Living Well food bank.

This week's title pun is pulling together tonight's task and last week's rather unusual and very special community mission, where Louise and Stuart helped out and Jenn and Ben performed. You can read the report here and see some lovely photos.

It's getting chilly and, under a clear sky, we had all added some extra layers and guarded our extremities against the cold. As we gathered in the garden, we celebrated two milestones, with Ian having completed his 50th good deed at a mission yesterday and Clare completing her 50th tonight - well done both of you! I presented them with gingerbread medals, which they wore with pride (I'm sorry if you have previously reached a milestone and not been in receipt of edible bling, this idea came to me today in a flash of inspiration!).

Tonight we had a bigger group than the past couple of weeks, possibly to do with our super task - our visits to Living Well are always very popular. We ran the short distance to Holy Trinity Church and were met by Rowena and Jane, who showed us a very neatly packed container. It seems they have had some help as the donations have been coming in from the harvest festival, so our job was to pull the crates out and correctly label them. A train of strong bodies lifted and shifted crates and checked the contents before labelling, 'beans', 'biscuits', 'tea', 'sweet treats' and so on. Once this had been done it was time to carefully put everything back, so it will be accessible and easy to grab when the bags are made up for the weekly lunch. Once these were in, it was time to put back the many bags of toiletries that were in the doorway, leaving enough space for volunteers to get in and reach the boxes.

Before we left, Jane and Rowena told us about the different opportunities for volunteering and how they are always in need of helpers. You don't have to commit to coming every week, so have a look here to find out how you can get involved.

On our way back, we stepped away from the road and found some space on the edge of the park (the dark park!) for our little lower-body fitness session. Great work on the various squats, lunges and jumps! As we move into winter, we have to make the most of any light spots we can find, so the bike racks outside Penge East station were the perfect opportunity for some push-ups and the nearby wall gave us a great space to tri-dip. As we stretched outside the Bridge House, we chatted about next week's task, at the Upper Norwood Library Hub. I'm excited to be returning here, after our last visit, which involved a Krypton Factor-like challenge with the most complicated shed ever. This time we will be working inside, with some painting and possibly other tasks - don't wear your best kit and bring a head-torch for the run back.

Keep it steady!