Both Mr R and I were stealing ourselves for the upcoming heatwave later this week - Mr R struggles in the heat, so is not looking forward to it...fortunately there was a breeze to accompany my wander to Tesco this afternoon, and his list was straightforward including a request for Ritz crackers which were easily found. The shelves were a little bare though, and on my return we discussed whether this was the taste of things to come (excuse the pun...) due to the various global issues headlining the news at the moment, and which products might prove harder to track down over the coming months...

An unusually cloudy and breezy (and dusty) London Fields greeted Run Director Rue, Marshall (and nearly tail walker) Sooz and timekeeper Nick this morning - after the past few weeks of bright sunshine and warm temperatures it was something of a welcome change. We were also delighted to be joined by John, who eagerly donned the hi viz and stood ready for instruction on where Rue wanted him deployed - the marshall post by the playground became his chosen spot for today.

As we now seem to be very much into summer holiday season, we stood under the big tree at 0845 somewhat in anticipation of how many enthusiastic runners we'd get, but they soon started appearing from all directions, including two absolute first timers, and in the end 22 stood poised on the windy start line awaiting the off...and then they were gone, and soon spread out in a long line around the edge of the fields - our intrepid Tail Walker Johnny (who to be fair had a small person on his shoulders) struggled to keep up with the pace!

After just over 8 minutes our lead runner headed down the finishing straight followed by a neatly spaced sequence of out of breath runners, of whom 6 set new PBs, which was going some in today's wind. At the end we sadly bid farewell to Johnny one of our long time RDs today as he heads to deepest Kent to take on a new job, and who, along with his wife and two children, have been huge supporters of London Fields junior parkrun for such a long time - they will all be missed, especially when it comes to token sorting at the end of each event...

There was a noticeable police presence all along Tottenham Court Road this afternoon, accompanied by sirens and a lot of hi viz - seems they were targeting the souped up electric bikes, and judging by the number already chained to a flat bed truck, were having some success.

Souped up was also Mr T's top request as he'd missed a shop last week and so had "broken into" his emergency supplies - in this case tins of vegetable or chicken soup from M&S. Once found, it was a slow amble back via Holland&Barrett, Tesco and eventually Lidl to complete his list - sadly there was no washed Spinach to be found on the shelves today, so Mr T will be back to giving the leaves a double rinse in the sink before consuming for his tea.

A double helping of goat's milk related products on today's list for Miss N - both she and I had no idea you could even get semi-skimmed goat's milk, but you can in Tesco. The specific soft goat's cheese in Aldi required a bit more hunting around on the shelves, but eventually was found slightly hidden behind a myriad of other cheeses - the world's moved on a lot from when variations on cheddar were seen as luxury items...