Take it from me, this is how it unfolded: When GoodGym Greenwich of Bag End announced they would shortly be celebrating their weekly group run with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton, Greenwich…

The party of course was at one of our regular haunts, found along the country lanes leading out of the Shire in Greenwich, but more of that later…

We started in lovely surroundings yesterday evening, and 17 of us gathered and spoke of good things, and not of the evil EYE, and at 7pm our run leader, Alex, started with a question: In an ideal world, what would your perfect advent calendar contain? Well, fascinating and tantalising, we had chocolate brownies, a weekend away somewhere hot (well, 25 weekends to be specific), puppies (presumably and hopefully with some holes in the doors...), a portal to a better world, and everything said before and to come and all of it in-between… hmmmm.... if only GoodGym paid. Perhaps, however, my favourite was a series of photos on alternating days of friends, family, and dogs.

Still thinking of opening advent calendars, we headed to the Naval College green for a drama game warm-up, where we invoked Tolkien legend. From yee-haw to mor-dor. The Ring, the One, was suddenly amongst us, in the Shire in Greenwich (!), but none of us wanted it and we passed it on – HAVE THE RING! – and the One Ring kept moving from one to the next until – YOU SHALL NOT PASS! – and Gandalf appeared and he was actually Ian Mckellen and this is all ABSOLUTELY TRUE and then we all stopped because it was time for our – SHIRE PARTY! – and then there were fireworks in the shapes of dragons and we all cheered GOODGYMGOODGYMGOODGYM but... but... but... the One Ring was never far from temptation…

Quickly, with the One Ring still in our possession, kept secret so as not to alert any Ring Wraiths lurking somewhere nearby (probably Eltham), we started off on our adventure...

Trotting through streets well-known to us all, it wasn't long before we arrived at... More TWO TOWERS Childcare, a regular haunt for us Shire Greenwich folk. There, we were met by the lovely Eve, who let us know our list of tasks, and then we split to it. Some cleaned chairs and tables; others went up to the top of the TWO TOWERS, sorting and clearing toys, including lego-las and a trilogy of books bound in leather and containing maps and stories of legends spoken from long ago; others became handy with drills and screwdrivers and fixed things that were broken; and some swept outside with magical flying brooms (which led to some being confused about the famous popular fantasy adventure they were living).

Alongside this, Julian and I went to fix a new door with new hinges. But… Eve could not find the door, it having been misplaced. Together, inspired by some dark internal energy, we cried: We need MORE-DOOR! MORE-DOOR! MORDOR! But in the nick of time, Eve saved our souls, and led us to another door (one with hope), and we fixed that instead. Saved.

Finished, we then had our party of special magnificence – the lovely more2 team, who we’ve been visiting for years, supplied us with alcohol-free mulled wine and ginger biscuits, and plenty more biscuits which we were even allowed to take home. Thank you! This made for a perfect end to a specially magnificent evening 😊

Thanks, guys, really looking forward to the next time!

It seems to rain a lot in Woolwich. Which is insulting, and probably not true, and based on nothing but the truth (!) that every time I’ve been in Woolwich on a Wednesday, it has been pelting down water from the black sky.

But I like the rain.

And so, it seems, do 9 other GoodGymmers, who collected outside Woolwich’s very lovely Crossrail station this Wednesday evening. Albeit under cover, and in the dry, and all armed with waterproofing and umbrellas and hats and very lovely smiles.

Our run leader, Sara, started the session with a question: if we were in a famous band, what role would we play? And I think, after considering our band of answers, we have amongst ourselves, superstars – hip hop hype dancing MCs, a frontman 80s rock god, and Elton John. And hyped by our responses, we two-stepped into a quick warm up, and we then burst through the smoke machine, and into the light and rain, and we headed to our task.

Up the long, winding hill…

Hours passed us by, and night became day, and day became night, and still, we hadn’t left Woolwich… We set up camp somewhere along the hill, and a dizzy haze descended upon our group, and some started to clean the roads and the lampposts, thinking we were already at our task. Amidst our delusion, at some undetermined point, we moved on, up the hill, leaving a section of road spotlessly clean. And then, suddenly, we were in the reception foyer of Shrewsbury House, dazed and confused.

There, we were met by the lovely team who run this fantastic community centre, and we were taken to a separate outbuilding, our arms loaded with an abundance of cleaning paraphernalia. Here, we got cracking – some, with long-reaching dusters, brushed away cobwebs from the ceilings, Sara cleaned with a handheld hoover, Andy wiped the walls and radiators clean, Pieter tackled the floors with the hoover, Kerry knocked the punching bag around and made Brin very scared, and this is just a snapshot, because everyone was busy making the place lovely and clean and ready for use by the local community.

And then, quite quickly, it was time to leave, and we took our cleaning gear back to the reception foyer. Here, Alex and I left the group to jump on a bus, and the rest headed back down the hill through the rain.

A really lovely evening everyone and looking forward to the next one!

Well what a night! A last minute cancellation saw Sarah run an extra good deed in my eye to grab the leaflets needed for this back up deed. Thank you Sarah and Rachel for the last minute organisation.

The gang gathered shivering in the covered area above our normal meeting point, and thankfully no one left at the news that we were no longer off to an indoor task. Most impressively was that our newest member Kristin stayed the course and got stuck in this evening. So glad to have you with us Kristin!

We did our introductions and heard which of the group had any secret dancing skills. I had hoped to initiate a dance off but that will have to wait for a future social, i personally cant wait to see Alex dad dancing versus Brin 90s west coast hip hop.

We did a quick warm up in the brief dry patch and headed up maze hill to distribute our leaflets. The group split into two and we divided our territory - essential when leafleting the good people of Greenwich!

My group quickly lost each other but mostly stayed in buddies so no one was lonely, in what was now driving rain. I think we can all agree that the best tactic for leaflets is to find houses divided into flats - one door and lots of postboxes.

Well done all for staying when the conditions couldn't have been much worse. I personally hope this change in weather calms down, especially in time for parkrun on the weekend.

We have some excellent community missions coming up plus our Christmas social! Get signed up and see you all soon.

What’s the only coat you should put on wet? A coat of paint!

What’s blue and smells like red paint? Read to the bottom for the answer.*

Not sure if these are jokes or riddles. Either way, they kick off this week’s mission report because…

After painting the town red on last week's social, Woolwich Goodgymers returned to the Glyndon Community Centre on Wednesday to do their worst to 75% of the walls. Why was the other wall left alone? That’s not a joke, or a riddle. I honestly don’t know. Does anyone know?

It was Mick Jagger who famously sang “I see a red door and I want it painted black.” This time, it was our genial host Andy, who saw a magnolia wall and wanted it painted, well, magnolia.

Back at base, it was going to be no paint no gain with a warmup designed to get us ready for life as decorators who decide to push their feet against walls and do the low sections of wall in a squat.

A fun running game (depending on where you were in the line) followed by some squats got us in in the mood for painting those hard to reach skirting boards. But there was no skirting around the truth, Jen wanted to inflict the same experience as she’d had in her gym.

In honour of many failed London marathon ballots (and I’m sure at least one of us looking disappointed at it, when actually they were relieved), we shared what we would happily do 26.2 of. From reading books, to eating chocolate, to owning pets, it at least showed where our priorities lay. At the venue we sanded, we washed, we brushed and we rolled. Plenty of us made light work of the task, which was just as well because King Charles was appearing on The Repair Shop. A quick photo or two against a newly-painted wall and we were gone.

It was all downhill from there - quite literally as we headed back to our starting point of Woolwich Elizabeth line for a stretch and a reminder that our fearless leader Jen is directing the Charlton Parkrun this Saturday. Go do it!

*Blue paint.