We were back tonight helping Shieldfield Art Works to spread the word about their upcoming Oceans of Kindness free exhibition. This was the perfect Bank Holiday task as we could crack on at leisure without needing to have someone let us in (or out!) of anywhere.

Fresh from a brilliant performance at yesterday’s Gateshead Half Marathon, Louise was resting her running legs along with Michael and I who had chosen to walk, so in the end Aimee and Damu also chose to stroll rather than run! On that note, let’s start with a huge cheer for Damu, clocking up his third good deed in three days. Well done!!

We were planning to get approx 120 leaflets out tonight in the Shieldfield area, ready to return next week to finish the job with another hundred.

It’s well documented that I have zero skills in the way of navigation or map reading so I explained a rough route before we even set off tonight, but the plan to stay together definitely helped. We set off up the hill towards Shieldfield and got cracking.

I had a vague memory tonight that there was something historically interesting about Shieldfield and used Google to unlock the memory- incidentally Damu has a different method to remember stuff that you must make a note to ask him about- and it started what became a list of facts about the area, including that King Charles the 1st once played golf on the green here. Louise then shared some facts about Queen Victoria and we discussed the origin of the term "Alderman". The time flew by, my historical knowledge increased, the leaflets were posted, and amazingly nobody got lost.

Finishing off with a circuit style fitness session that did not involve golf, and we were all wrapped up with a big chunk of the evening still ahead (plus enchiladas in Michael’s case) to enjoy. Our walk back had lots of chat about Aimee’s recent West Highland Way adventures and a cool group photo taken by a friendly member of public passing by. We will be back with more dodgy map plans and the rest of the leaflets to get out next week. See you then!

On a very wet Sunday morning in Sunderland, four GoodGymers time kept, barcode scanned, marshalled and run directed at Mowbray Park junior parkrun. A bit of moisture didn’t get in the way of an excellent morning, but did mean that the group photographs took place safely indoors rather than at the junior parkrun!