Our visit to Acton Juniors this morning was Maria's 101st good deed. She secretly snuck in an under the radar session on Wednesday, when no one was looking to reach the wonderful milestone of century of sessions with GoodGym, earning her 🪽🪽s. As a result, Maria had the honour of wearing the pink GoodGym angel wings at today's task 😇. She's become a GoodGym regular since joining 2 years ago and has been to many different types of tasks, walking and cycling her way all over the borough 👏🙌✨.

Steph and Maria arrived early for the Junior parkrun and helped Marco, today's Run Director, by completing the course check and setting up signs and cones. Rather than describing the course layout to today's runners, Marco told everyone that it was "complicated" at the briefing, but there were marshals - like Steph and Maria - around the course to guide the runners which worked perfectly.

Kash and Sevan avoided those complexities by volunteering in the funnel where they were barcode scanning and timekeeping. Together they logged the 32 runners who completed the course today. It was again noticeably a lot quieter than usual as many people were still away on holiday, so runner numbers are expected to bounce back as the end of the school holidays gets nearer.

Visit of my 2nd coach Mr T today - cooler weather but still hot in his flat. An hour chat - time flies.

GoodGymers took a stroll through the deep dark wood.
Elsa saw them and GoodGymers looked good.

Elsa, from Friends of Horsenden Hill, knew the fearless 14 GoodGymers who arrived at Horsenden Farm on a sunny Saturday were the only team large and brave enough to work so close to where the Gruffalo lurked in the woods behind the farmhouse.

First, she asked Gus, Steph Ducat and Richard to gather the timber stacked beside the farmhouse and reinforce the dead hedge. A sturdy barrier against the hungry Gruffalo, perhaps?

Next, Elsa sent Afshin, Iram and Kash to wheelbarrow a mountain of green waste - rotting onion tops, spoiled peppers, pattypan squash and potatoes - to a spot near the canoe club. Was this a cunning plan to tempt the Gruffalo towards the canal instead of the farm?

Finally, Elsa recruited Andrew, Breda, Emma, Harvey, Melissa, Penny, Scott and Sevan for an enormous weeding job, hoeing and scraping the grass and weeds from the path leading to the Gruffalo's lair. Surely she wasn't making it easier to spot the monster's turned-out toes? Not at all. By clearing away the soft carpet of greenery, she'd ensured that if the Gruffalo sneaked in to steal the pigs, the scrape of his terrible claws against the hard, dry ground would give him away long before he reached the farm.

With the farm secured from its fearsome woodland neighbour, the GoodGymers, led by Elsa's trusty dog Archie, headed through the deep dark wood, following the heavenly aroma of Horsenden's famous pizza. Then, suddenly, they stumbled upon... the Gruffalo!

"Here's my favourite food!" the Gruffalo said. '"GoodGymer crumble!"

But one sniff of the pizza wafting through the woods changed his mind. By the time he reached the farm, there wasn't a slice left. The well-fed GoodGymers simply strolled past the Gruffalo's lair on their way to their second task at the top of Horsenden Hill, leaving the poor monster to rummage through the pile of green waste by the canal in search of a few scraps of rotten onion.