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...

Along with the usual regulars on today's list for Mrs S, she threw in a couple of curveballs - the first was pumpernickel (for which I was confident that if anywhere was going to have it in stock, Waitrose would be top of my list), and the other was paper napkins (or was that serviettes...), which prompted a discussion between Mrs S and I as to whether there was a difference between the two...

Sadly pumpernickel was nowhere to be found in the aisles of the world's politest supermarket, and neither were serviettes - fortunately my route home took me past IKEA who I knew wouldn't let me down on the serviette/napkin front - the search for the rye bread continues for another week.

When I arrived at Mr M's door this afternoon ready for some chair building, he introduced himself by his first name, and said that's what I should call him - not Mr M, nor Mr Surname, or any other combination.

He showed me the two (large) boxes in his somewhat narrow hallway, and asked how long he'd got me for - I said I was there to get both chairs built, which was clearly the right answer based on his gratitude and the promise of a can of coke at any point.

Fortunately both chairs were reasonably straightforward to construct, and had all the requisite parts, tools and instructions - not for the first time the constraint was the lack of space in the hallway, but after building chair 1, and moving this into Mr M's living room, there was enough room to build chair 2, which Mr M said would stay in the hallway for now whilst he made space in one of the other rooms for it.

I gave both chairs a quick test drive - the recliner (with built in leg rest) was remarkably comfortable...Mr M was very grateful for my efforts, and doubly so when I said I'd take all the empty boxes downstairs to his bin store. The cold can of coke was well earned.

A cracking evening at one of our favourite spots — Hackney Marsh Adventure Playground, which always delivers on the rewarding session front.

We had a nice little group run: Nick, Rue, John, Adam and Brad joined me in setting off from the Aquatics Centre, jogging up the canal in glorious evening light — about as lovely a warm-up as we'll get. We were joined by Chloe, Joke and Paul at the playground, and got a warm welcome from task owner Ange.

For the record: a Newham task, held in Hackney, with Chloe, John and Rue over from Tower Hamlets. Three boroughs, one sandpile...

The task itself? A mound of sand to shift. Not just any sand — this had been donated from the London Stadium long jump pit, freshly dug out after Saturday's Diamond League meet. Our job was to move what we could over to the sandpit part of the playground.

Cue a shifting and spreading production line: shovels flying, wheelbarrows trundling back and forth, and plenty of teamwork as barrow after barrow were ferried across, with only a small number of mechanical and loading issues.

A couple of surprising things - first, that the stadium needs brand new sand every single time — and second, just how much of it there is. But actually when you think about it, world-class long jumpers probably do cover a fair bit of ground, so the pit must need to be pretty deep to land in safely. A quick google afterwards confirmed it: a competition long jump pit needs somewhere in the region of 6–9 cubic metres of sand. Worth retaining that for when it comes up in a pub quiz.

By the end of our session, we'd made a visible dent and felt like we'd had a workout. Huge thanks to Ange for having us. And a brilliant turnout — it genuinely made the difference, because these tasks simply don't happen without people showing up. So thank you to everyone who came along and we'd love to see you all again soon 💪