What a treelightful evening!

A super six skipped happily to St John the Evangelist in Upper Norwood, covering 4km of running and 18 feet of tree with lights.

We started the evening with a couple of news items that will give us the extra opportunity to do good this week:

• Our community mission at Living Well on Thursday, starting at 12.30pm. Sign up here.

• A community mission by our neighbours in Lewisham, happening in nearby Beckenham on Saturday, helping Kings Christmas Trees to distribute their trees. Find out more and sign up here.

The biggest news this week though was that Louise was completing her 50th good deed! Louise joined us at our very first run in Penge, back in July 2017 and has been with us ever since. In that time, she has become known for her ability and love of climbing many flights of stairs and her incredible knowledge of...just about everything! Well done Louise, we look forward to seeing you in your black t-shirt.

In the time we had been gathering at our start point, it had become very cold outside, so off we went, not wishing to hang around for long! We were soon walking into the church and being taken aback by the sheer scale of the project, this was a big tree! As we looked at all the lights and baubles, we were joined by Fr Daniel, who quickly set us off on the task. I must admit to finding this a little stressful, being quite particular about how the lights are placed on my own tree, but it's less than half the size of this one and considerably easier to tackle!

Get unknotted!

We unpacked lights, untangled lights and strung lights (not necessarily in that order). With Tim scaling the heights and every-so-often coming up with less than health and safety compliant suggestions, we soon started to give the tree some sparkle and began finding a rhythm, with the strings being passed in a circle. Stepping back now and then, we stroked our chins and spotted bare patches, thinking of solutions to the problem as we went - this was definitely a test of our team-working skills.

After popping up a tight spiral staircase to take an aerial photo, I realised that time was almost up. A quick survey found that everyone was happy to forgo the fitness session this evening, in favour of finishing the lights (you missed a real festive burpee-heavy treat too!). You can see from the photos that it was worth continuing a little longer and we all enjoyed the sparkly light cast from our handiwork. If you want to see the tree in all its glory, you can go along to the switching on of the lights at the upcoming Christmas Carol Service on December 23rd.

Pie knees

Running back towards our start point always feels easier, with a nice downward pull and the promise of freshly baked mince pies. This was my last group run in Bromley for 2018, so a very big thank you to everyone who has joined us this year and I look forward to seeing you on January 8th. In the meantime, next week will be our last run of the year, with Lucy from GoodGym Southwark at the helm. Sign up here for a visit to our friends at Sydenham Community Library.

Happy Christmas!