After the recent warmer conditions, it was a pleasant (but very welcome) surprise to be met by a cool breeze blowing across the Fields this morning - it made Rue and Nick's job of setting up the course easier, albeit the wind was definitely not in a co-operative mood as it seemed determined to blow over the start/finish sign and parkrun flag...

It was great to see Anna and Lobo also appear this morning to help out - Anna was keen to don the tailwalker hi viz with the added foxtail, and Lobo did an excellent job on token duty (both Finish and Sorting) - Rue was on barcode scanning duty, which proved for once to be a bit more challenging than usual, and all this assistance made Nick's job as today's Run Director a whole lot easier.

A good number of first time visitors to the Fields swelled the pack as we discovered that Highbury Fields junior parkrun had been cancelled this morning due to an event. Our first finisher sped round in a super speedy 8 minutes, closely followed by the remaining largely breathless pack - Anna brought home the final walker, who was doing just her 2nd ever parkrun, in just over 20 minutes, and so event #378 came to a successful close for another week.

Same time, same place under the Big Tree next week for more fun at the Fields.

I rolled up fashionably late (OK just a couple minutes after kick off) to find Chloe already in the zone, wrestling weeds from the giant gravel quad like she was auditioning for gladiators. the sun was so ferocious that the white gravel should have had a sunglasses warning - how she didn't go snow blind is beyond me. What a legend. She was not alone in her heroics. Cue the dream team: a local granny and her 3 under 5's sidekicks. all armed with tiny trowels and huge enthusiasm. They put my gardening game to shame. I grabbed the shears and did my best Edward Scissorhands impression on the brambles, then moved on to excavating dead bushes.
The real workout came when we turned collective table carrying into a weight lifting session. nothing says community quite like 4 people struggling with the weight of a very large table - or 2. I had to dash off after an hour- Chloe, the trooper, carried on keeping up the good vibes and good work. massive thanks to James and Nicky for letting us join you on the amazing community garden journey. can't wait to come back and see what's growing. Rue

One of those tasks where everything just neatly slotted into place - to the point where we commended Ms R on purchasing a sturdy well built (and well designed from a flat pack build perspective) sofa. We seemingly had it built in no time, with the instructions being clear and concise (always welcome...). Once we'd moved a small table, it even fitted perfectly into the space that Ms R wanted it in - thumbs up all round, and Ms R was delighted with our efforts, and her new sofa.

Perfect conditions this morning at the Fields, and clearly 50 enthusiatic junior runners thought so too, including two first timers who sped round the two lap course at top speed to claim the top two positions - congratulations to them and hopefully they'll be back again, along with our other first timers, all of whom were doing their first ever junior parkruns.

Someone who definitely wasn't attending her first junior parkrun was Sarah whom we welcomed back after a few weeks away, and who made her tree her home once again - in fact we had a great volunteer turnout with a mix of parkrunners, DoE and willing parents all keen to put on the high viz, and all of whom made today's event run smoothly and made Nick's life as today's Run Director so much easier!

More of the same next week under the big tree, where hopefully it'll be a repeat of today's blue skies and bright sunshine, and super speedy performances.

BlindAid asked if GoodGym could help Ms L prepare for her house move, and it was an absolute pleasure! GG-er Chandrima wasted no time and began organising the items into four clear piles: donation/charity, sell, throw, and keep.

I sorted through kitchen items such as pots, pans, lids, containers, plates, bowls, trays, baking moulds, table mats, and chopping boards, de-cluttered kitchen shelves and countertop and sorted haircare items including brushes, combs, wigs, colour, shampoo, conditioner, and styling products, while checking in with Ms L on where each item should go. The condition of each item was also briefly described to Ms L, and it was then placed in the appropriate pile based on her judgement. The same process was repeated for cat toys and a miscellaneous mix of items such as extension cables, plugs, CDs, books, papers, 4 drain-unclogging cables, and pull-up bars.

As part of the task, I also rearranged boxes by size so that everything would be easier to manage during the move. Ms L was lovely company, and we had a great chat along the way, including swapping restaurant recommendations for French and Asian food in London.

It was a really enjoyable and productive session, and I’ll be back again to help Ms L continue sorting through the rest of her things.

parkrun (the junior version or otherwise) is most certainly not a race, but occasionally you do have to doff your cap to one of our Sunday morning runners who clearly had more than one weetabix for breakfast this morning. Our first finisher, on a first time visit from his usual course at Leyton, crossed the line in an awe inspiring 6:56, more than a minute clear of his closest "pursuer" - chapeau m'sieur, as they say in bike racing. The maths is easy to work out his per km splits!!

Thanks as ever to our very helpful GoodGym volunteers who arrived at the big tree this morning and made sure everything ran smoothly - Hilary, John and Harvey were deployed as Course Marshals at key spots around the course, whilst Sooz and Nick kept it all largely under control at the start/finish line by barcode scanning, marshalling, encouraging and run directing, and all of our 40 finishers, including 1 absolute first timer, and 2 who received their half-marathon wristbands for each having completed 11 runs, crossed the line smiling (if a little red faced and out of breath), although a few needed to be guided towards the finish funnel...

More of the same under the big tree next week (super speedy times not guaranteed...) - join us if you can!