AJ and Linda each had a nice little walk to the Uplands Road entrance to Roding Valley Park where we met with volunteers Paul, local litter picking legend Jan and task owner Robert.

Expecting to be litter picking or cutting back undergrowth we were surprised to find out we were painting the gate today.

Armed with stiff brushes and scrapers the five of us set about prepping the metal work frames. With the prep sorted we were getting twitchy about all the litter lying about so Robert obliged us with a picker and a bag for us to use on the usual array of discarded plastic wrapping, poo bags, and underpants while he organised the mid session tea and biccies.

During a companionable few minutes refreshment we put the world to rights discussing national politics, the war in Ukraine and harking back to the "good old days" of power cuts in the 1970s. Clearly our 23 year old couldn't contribute to the latter part of the conversation so he opened the paint tins and started handing out paint brushes.

During the painting session a cargo bike rider came through, we apologised for holding them up while we moved our ladder, the rider said they were fine with that and just glad we weren't there to put the railway sleeper back across the path. We explained it was us that removed it on a previous mission and they were very happy with us as it used to take a lot to lift the bike over it. We do love a happy 'customer'.

The joy of painting is you can make a remarkable difference very quickly. It was a messy but rewarding task. By the end of the session some of us had green fingers in the true sense of the word and at least one of us is pretending green hair streaks are the new fashion but all in all we were pleased with what we had accomplished.