After our painting talk in Poppleton was cancelled last minute due to soggy furniture, Barbara identified the perfect spot for a litter pick, in the pretty little village of Knapton. Why perfect? Well...

1) There was a veritable olfactory treasure trove of litter. Highlights included not one but two cans of Impulse body spray ( great for early noughties nostalgia) AND a pyramid- shaped glass aftershave bottle. Those Knapton folk clearly take pride in their smell! (We won’t mention the multiple bottles of suspicious- looking yellow fluid - we'll blame the passing motorists for those.)

2) We just so happened to finish our litter pick just down the road from John and Sally Bourton's house. In fact, John joined us with his impressive state- of- the- art litter picking trolley. He also told us that he’d litter-picked the same area only about a week ago so our 6(!) bags- worth of litter had accumulated since then. Oh, and we also saw Lizzie K who lives locally and told us that the village had been planninga litter pick to address the mass of rubbish that had built up, so we’ve hopefully saved them a job ( or postponed them needing to do it, anyway!) As well as it being lovely that John was able to join us, he also kindly invited us back to his lovely house for coffee and biscuits, despite the fact that he and Sally were expecting visitors later! While there, I picked John and Sally's brains on their bird- feeding set up and got some good squirrel- deterrence tips!

All in all, a lovely afternoon, making the most of a last-minute task cancellation. Thank you Barbara for coming up with a great alternative task so quickly!

On what will definitely prove to be the last cold Monday group run of 2025, we headed out to Green Lane allotments. A new area, but digging over abandoned allotments so that they can be reused is old hat for us. Colin from the allotment association met us there and quickly pointed us in the right direction, and then bonded with Nick and Stef as three exiled Brummies.

A small group peeled off to clear a large pile of branches that were in the way of a hedge that needed cutting, while the rest of us got stuck into digging over the allotments. As usual, the soil was choked with weeds. Not unusual, lots of the allotment had been covered over with carpet in a failed attempt to kill off the weeds. Unusually, and unwelcome, the carpet was at least three layers thick in places (plus bonus parts of old fridge and plastic sheeting, because reasons). Not to be defeated, we applied the old faithful brute force and ignorance approach to ripping it out. Other top finds included Laura's mysterious void (possibly the remains of an air raid shelter give. all the brickwork Leanne unearthed) and a "fossilised dinosaur".

After 45 mins of heavy work, the general consensus was that the allotment was improved to the point that someone might want it, but would benefit from another GG visit.

The party pace group headed straight back to base while the rest headed for some cheeky prize hill reps at the windmill. The prize being a bonus rep for the first few four to the bottom of the hill. Then just a steady jog back, a quick stretch and home to warm up.