We were starting to get a bit concerned about whether anyone would be able to make it after a few cancellations throughout the day, but thankfully six runners made it to pick litter with head torches and gloves at the ready.

Fay came to say hi to our new runners, Helen and Nathan, and we were slightly mesmerised by their shiny shiny running jackets.

It was so cold that I encouraged everyone to do a warm up, which went down with a lot less complaints than usual!

We jogged down to the river and whilst filling up two large bags, we learnt that you can only make thanksgiving recipes that serve a minimum of five people, even if only two are eating, and that Martin must have made some very sturdy toilet roll angels when he was a child for them to still be on his parents tree every year.

The fumes from the cans of lager we collected nearly got the better of David, with him trying to start an argument with any deniers of yorkshire puddings on a christmas dinner. Joel almost fell into the trap, but couldn't go against his beliefs.

Great effort everyone, see you all soon!

Laurie

Won't let me have zero as a distance...

After some issues with timing and road closures we made it to Barrow Farm at about 1:30. And we had missed the grand opening and being thanked by the mayor!

Fortunately, there was still plenty of tea, cakes, food and wine flowing so we chatted with various people about the absolutely outstanding transformation of the garden!

I almost feel a bit bad seeing our name on the board being thanked alongside some of the other names. The garden looks amazing.

Just a few of those we chatted to were Charlotte's mother; the reason the garden exists at all, Andrea; who is an absolute icon and can't be praised enough, Shawn from the Lions and Men's Shed; who wants Laurie on the radio, and of course Linda the mayor.

Joe did some magnificant art and Erin showed up a tad worse for wear, and a massive thank you to everyone who helped out. 14 tonnes of soil moved!

They may want us back to help with maintaining the garden so watch this space!

12 GoodGymers and one little helper braved the cold for a volunteering session at Chelmsford Central parkrun.

We did marshalling, barcode scanning, and finish tokening.

Most of us struggled to resist the Mr Kiplings pies afterwards, followed by hot drink queues, large breakfasts and pancakes at our old faithful Wetherspoons.

Well done all, and we'll be repeating this in January!

Laurie

We went from leafletting to do some leaf-getting at St John's Church and 14 very keen GoodGymers headed out on a dark and cold November night to help out!

We jogged over down the high street and admiring the Christmas lights in the high street to meet Fay, Rich (injured arse and all), and Angela beavering away.

We leapt to work despite the fact we weren't getting S-paid we were still raking it in. Joe hopped in the bin to push the leaves down and Jess was helping until she said 'you're better off alone', to which Joe whistfully replied 'that's what my ex said'. How we laughed. Doug almost on his knees in laughter. After filling four bins we posed for photos while Andy almost committed tree-son by suggesting we shake the trees to get more leaves down. Leaf it out mate. Laurie lead us on a long route on the way back, we admired the gymnastics Russell attempted and made it back to base.

See you for Parkrun volunteering this weekend! And then spoons, baby!

We met at the uni and agreed that while the car claimed it was nine degrees, the car is a liar. Very chilly.

We headed off to meet Charlie and Iris at King's Road - obv in honour of the 75th birthday - and began to pick. It turned out that was our only running as we meandered through the streets chatting.

Erin is asking santa for a new car, Joel now has a spare license plate he can give that he found, and Ben offered up his trolley instead. Joel also found himself dinner, delicious floor tuna sandwiches, white chocolate, and loads of beers and red bull. The rest of us talked about takeaways.

Lovely to have a catch up! See you soon!