A welcome return to visit Sybil and the team at The Emmanuel Parish Church this evening, after what had felt like quite a long winter break - even the evening sun made a welcome appearance after our run across from Freaks and Geeks started under forbidding skies and passing rain showers.

It was also a very warm welcome to Kevin on his first mission in Newham. Regulars Hilary, Brad, Graham, and Nick made up the rest of tonight's gang.

Of course Sybil had much planned for us to do, and so with tools, gloves, bags, Iris plants and compost at the ready we were tasked with weeding a border bed at the far end of the Church garden, as well as removing Ivy from the wooden fence, and then preparing and planting the Irises and laying compost across the top surface. With much helpful assistance from other volunteers from the Church group we were soon down on our knees removing all the unwanted greenery from the bed and fencing, before trying to turn the soil in preparation for the planting. Helpfully a hose was at hand to make the soil a little more compliant, and with trowels in hand it was a case of dig and plant at roughly even spacing, followed by a thick layer of compost to feed the plants.

Before we knew it, the time was upon us to pack up, and as we walked back into the Church hall with tools in hand, the team produced plates of sandwiches and fruit to "replenish our energy" - always welcome after a hard day of bordering. Hilary led us on a chatting speed run back to Freaks and Geeks, where we decided to have an impromptu social in the pub to celebrate another successful Tuesday evening of weeding and planting.

We look forward to seeing these latest plants flourish in the garden, and we'll be back again in early July to do a closer inspection!

There was something quite satisfying about Miss N's sister handing me a handful of pound coins to part pay for today's shop - I can't recall the last time I had so much loose change on me. A quick trip to Tesco to pick up bread, and then into the now very familiar Aldi for everything else - the aisles were quiet as was the queue to pay at the machine happy to take cash, so I was soon back again at her door, with just minimal change in hand...

A first for me today as Mr R asked me to get him a jar of capers - something I've never bought before for any other shoppee or myself - I forgot to ask him into what dish he intended to add them. I also wasn't quite sure where in Tesco to search for them, but fortunately they proved easy enough to fine and Mr R was delighted that I'd ticked everything on the list again this week.

After last week's nearly successful mission to build Ms S's new divan, she had (miraculously) taken delivery of two new divan bed bases (and they took the old ones away - she said to me the delivery driver told her "this happens all the time" ), we were both hoping that this time they were matching twins...they were.

Ms S left me to do the unwrapping, constructing, joining, headboard attaching, mattress replacing to the sounds of Radio 3, and after a while all was complete - she produced a mattress topper that she asked me to fit on top of the mattress and once done, I adjusted the headboard to ensure it was clear of the top of the mattress...and finally, after a week of unnecessary palaver, she finally had what looked like a very comfortable bed to sleep in. Mission very much accomplished.

Ms H was the first to admit the minute we were shown into her flat that "she had too much stuff"...not an unusual situation by any means when it comes to these types of missions.

She also had two cats who stared at us when we arrived, but one made a swift exit, perhaps in anticipation of what was to follow.

Ms H wanted us to move a chest out of her living room, and replace it with a wooden table currently in her kitchen, with the chest then going into the kitchen...did I mention her flat had very narrow corridors (very full of stuff).

The second task was to rotate her bed by 90 degrees, such that it was then positioned under the window - David and I agreed to revisit this particular challenge once we'd done the "easy part" (Ms H's well chosen words), as at first glance it appeared there was no spare space in any direction to permit rotation of any description.

Fortunately the drawers came out of the chest, so that made it lighter, and in turn the legs of the kitchen table could be removed, which made moving that easier too round the various corners. So after a bit of consideration, we had part one of the task completed, much to Ms H's delight.

Back to the bedroom - after a rapid decluttering of a multitude of different items into the narrow corridor outside, and removal of the drawers from another chest to make it lighter, we were ready to start moving - we shooed Ms H out of the way (she took it well...), and in a series of steps got the bed rotated far enough to allow us to move a smaller different chest along the wall, replug some wires, and finally fit the drawers back into the other chest.

It was then a case of returning all the items from the corridor back into the bedroom without knocking anything over or off the various surfaces whenever we moved or turned around.

By this time both cats had long escaped - David and I realised that putting our backpacks on in the flat would only end in object displacing disaster, so we shuffled our way out of the front door with bags in hand, ran into one of the cats who appeared remarkably unimpressed by it all, and bid the friendly and chatty Ms H farewell.

As we stood feeling somewhat chilly under the big tree this morning waiting for our junior runners to arrive, we all decided that it really wasn't shorts weather - clearly none of us had taken much notice of the forecast, or we'd been fooled by yesterday's day of summer.

Fortunately the cooler air didn't deter the crowds, as we welcomed 67 runners, plus their coaches and fans, to the course and witnessed a super speedy double circuit by our lead runner, who crossed the line in an eye watering 7:49, nearly 30 seconds clear of the second placer.

Of course parkrun isn't a race, so it was great to see so many others smiling as they went round the poles and cones in much less of a hurry, high fiving some of the marshalls along the way and generally enjoying their morning out. 7 First Timers visited us at the Fields today, hopefully we'll see them all again, and 15 PBs were set, which clearly showed a few had warmed up properly. With results uploaded and everything packed away for another week, we sped off to find ourselves a hot coffee and somewhere a little warmer to try and get our circulation going.