‘I’m worried I’m going to lose all the fitness I’ve built up. I was doing so well with my training.’ I’d actually got up 5k. ‘But… I can’t leave the girls alone in the house in the morning and we’re getting up at half six as it is.’
‘We could go out on Saturday. I’m sure Hilda wouldn’t mind babysitting.’ He gave me a quick grin. ‘Or perhaps you could ask Elaine.’
I widened my eyes. ‘She does like to talk.’
‘Maybe she doesn’t have many people to talk to during the day.’
‘Maybe.’
‘It can be tough all day on your own.’ There was a thoughtful expression in his eyes as he scanned the path ahead.
‘Any news on the job front?’
‘I may have news for you tomorrow night.’
‘You’ve got a job?’
He smiled enigmatically. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Tease.’ I pouted.
‘It’ll be worth waiting for; it’s not long now,’ he murmured in an undertone which made my trigger-happy libido jump to attention, releasing excited hormones that skipped through my veins.
‘True,’ my throaty response brought a slow twisted smile to his face.
For a second we stared at each other, the moment laden with intensity, until Ava skipped up between us, her eyes crinkled in concentration. ‘Will there be cake at the café? Sascha’s cake? She has nice cake.’
Ash laughed and caught her hand. ‘Yes, there will be cake.’
‘Are you sure?’ she asked with a frown.
‘A hundred per cent positive. I saw Sascha’s sister delivering cupcakes when I walked over with Bill earlier.’
With a nod of satisfaction, she fell into step beside us and slipped her other hand into mine. ‘Ash, do you think Bill likes cake?’
‘Bill likes anything but cake is not good for him.’
‘But why?’
I grinned at him and listened as he gently explained in great detail how dogs’ digestive systems differed from humans and that they were allergic to chocolate and certain fruit. For someone who was in touch with his grumpy side, he could be very patient with the girls.
The park had a closing-down-for-the-night feel to it as we followed the path to The Friendly Bean; a couple of lads were swishing backwards and forwards on the skateboard ramps, a few dog walkers ambled between the flower beds, but the swings were still in the play area and the benches around the bandstand and rose garden were all empty.
The lights in the café beckoned and when the six of us pushed through the door, I was greeted by several friendly faces and a surprising number of vaguely familiar ones. Charles, Penny, and Janie were there along with Neil Blenkinsop and Karen and Dave, the keen runner from work. There were also quite a few other people that I recognised: a woman who worked in Dr Boulter’s surgery, the young couple that lived next door but one to me, the man who stood at the ticket barrier at the station every day, the milkman, Greg, who jogged between houses as he delivered pint bottles, and a couple of checkout people from the local supermarket. There were also several fellow commuters, the balding man with a propensity for brown suits who usually sat in the same carriage as me on the seven thirty-seven train, a young permanently cheerful woman with the most gorgeous shade of auburn hair whom I often followed across the park, and a couple of others that I sort of knew but had never actually spoken to.
‘Evening,’ said Sascha with a very broad grin. ‘Busy.’
Wide-eyed, I looked at all the people in the coffee bar. There were easily four times as many as I was expecting and it wasn’t even seven o’clock yet.
‘I backed a winner.’ Her tone was triumphant. ‘Good job I got lots of cakes in.’ Dotted around the tables were little cardboard cake stands, each filled with mini cupcakes with swirled buttercream toppings of cream, pink, and pale blue. She’d done a far better job of guesstimating numbers than I had.
By seven o’clock, The Friendly Bean was packed. Ash, Hilda, and I made our way to the front of the room to the area we’d decided would be best from which to address people.
‘I can’t believe there are so many people here,’ I muttered to Hilda.
‘I have to say, I’m quite surprised too,’ said Hilda. ‘Although, in the good old days there was always a strong community spirit in Churchstone. Maybe it was the promise of cake. People love a freebie. And also, Sascha has quite a lot of connections.’ The turnout was great but I was worried that a lot of them were here to find out more about the run rather than wanting to volunteer.
For some reason, both Ash and Hilda had nominated me chief spokesperson. To my relief, this crowd of smiley people, nodding their heads in encouragement, were clearly going to be a lot easier to please than a hostile boardroom, of which I had plenty of experience. Penny gave me a big double-thumbs-up and Janie waved, as did the man next to her, who I assumed was her husband who had done all our artwork for free. I made a mental note to make sure I thanked him.
‘Good evening everyone and thank you for coming.’
Someone lifted a cake in toast. ‘Thanks for having us.’
‘Thank you to Sascha for letting us use the café and also to Matt who designed the posters, to Neil for supporting the idea with the council, and to Hilda,’ I indicated her with my hands, ‘who came up with the idea for a parkrun in Churchstone. And to the Harriers who have all been so supportive.
‘Thanks to a generous donation from someone in the community to get us started, we have the money to set up the parkrun, although we are researching grants and hoping for local sponsorship to pay this back as we do feel it should be a community-funded event.’
A man at the back of the room put up his hand. ‘I run Churchstone Sports on the High Street, I’d be more than happy to sponsor you.’
‘That’s great, thank you.’
‘Me too.’ Another man raised his hand. ‘Picton’s, family solicitor’s on Church Street.’
‘Brilliant.’ I hadn’t been expecting people to offer money tonight; this was an unexpected bonus. ‘Perhaps we can get together at the end of the meeting? For now, one of the things we are in desperate need of is volunteers. There are 678 parkruns in the UK and we hope to make Churchstone number 679. However, to sustain those existing runs there are over 15,000 volunteers.’ I paused and let the number sink in, scanning the faces to vet their reaction. To my relief, half of them didn’t jump to their feet to leave. That was a good start. ‘In order to make the parkrun happen every Saturday, we need at least twenty volunteers every week. Obviously, we would have a rota so we really need a bank of between forty and fifty people who would be willing to be help. So I’m asking for people who might be interested and who might know other people who would be interested. Some of these roles would also allow you to take part in the run but obviously things like marshals would preclude that. I’ve drawn up a list of the sorts of roles there are.’ I indicated the A3 flipchart which Ash had dropped off earlier. ‘We’ve got everything from run director, marshal, timekeeper, token sorter, funnel manager, pre and post-set-up. There is quite a lot involved but it’s only a few hours on a Saturday morning. The aim is to start at nine o’clock so that people have the rest of the day to get on with their weekend. I’m going to hand over to Ash here, who is going to explain what some of those roles are and what they would involve.’