I believe the title could also refer to a tv series set in the US, but in this case it is actually about the sides of the hill...

Today the northern side was the target: - wooden pallet - cans & bottles - plastic bags - general rubbish - dog poo bags - more dog poo bags - even more dog poo bags

It definitely raised a few questions on why people cannot just take care of their own rubbish....

Addie, Sharon, Eddie and Linda arrived early and started the set up. Sharon was on admin testing out instructions Linda had written to make sure they made sense and made it through identifying some minor hiccups.

Eddie and Addie got out the cages and set the bag table up. Natalie and Peter arrived and got stuck straight in with picking and packing. We also had two friends of Frenford helping out. With so many experienced willing hands we were done and sitting down to tea within the hour. We had a nice chatty catch up afterwards, we must enjoy each others company as "teabreak" took almost as long as the session 😊

Its been a while since we had a social at our local parkrun and with this weekend being Ed's 250th volunteer session it seemed a good enough excuse.

What we didn't realise was how many people would be away this week. As it turned out this was fine by Ed as our unsung hero of Valentines PR car park wasn't keen on having a big fuss.

Our little group of four went ahead anyway, Ed volunteered on his usual spot. Peter scanned in the finishers, Julia tail walked some of the slowest parkwalkers ever and Linda jeffed her way round the course. We were met by Sharon at the end who had popped over for a quick cuppa.

By the time we were all together the cafe had cleared comforably so we switched venues from the "Spoons" for refreshments and a companionable chat.

Luckily Peter had time to photograph the local wildlife as we had all forgotten to photograph each other 🤦‍♀️🙈

It had been a while since we had gone down our usual route down to Redbridge roundabout, so this evening we set off armed with bags & litterpickers... and ready for what we might find.

Besides the usual variation of rubbish, some of the other things: - few boxes & crates of what was fresh veg (??) - parking stub from Stanstedt Airport - brand new jumper from a local primary school (to be returned) - 7x heavy duty NO2 canisters (scrap) - 6 discarded Vapes, several of which rechargeable (disposal for recycling)

End result- 1 box & 2 bags in one spot, 2 bags in another, for collection by the council. Vapes to be disposed of responsibly to avoid fire risks, canisters to be scrapped. veg were left for wildlife to indulge.

P.S.... any more votes for Linda as the new Goodgym poster girl?

The ongoing Cyclospora outbreak, which is tied to lettuce imported from Mexico, has now been expanded to 15 states as cases rise. This meant all donated pre-made salad bags from Mexico had to be discarded to protect the Foodbank clients from potential exposure. Fortunately, there was still plenty of fresh local produce available in the market.

So..... how good are people with imperial measurements?

The M in the subject stands for Mile... so we are talking distance. But can anyone tell me what the F stands for? And on another level of trickiness, the P?

Answers at the bottom.

The Terrific Trio (not sure why autocorrect kept making that Terrible...😇) set off on a little trip mixing exploring & timing with tidying up. I.E. a litter pick with a target. This time around we went down the other side of the high street, making mental notes on bigger troublespots to revisit another day.

The guerilla gardening spots at Snaresbrook Station were remarkably clean - looks like Marian's crew still manages to climb up there!

Heading back towards the Green Man roundabout we came across the High Stone that triggered the subject and start of this report... The stone itself is so worn out that the text is no longer readable, but luckily there is a plate nearby with a copy of the text. It did not contain an explanation of the measurements, but it did spurr on several team members to speculate and research what it could be...

M for Mile

F for Furlong, 1/8 of a mile

P for Perch, 1/40 of a Furlong

P.S.. hope you can make it down next time, Racha