Today was a beautiful day!

After our mornings of Junior Parkrunning, where we had our inaugural Hornfair Junior Parkrun and an impressive 28 children (and I know because we were the last) we all congregated in Hornfair Park in the sweltering heat to share what we're grateful for over the last week. The responses ranged from a spontaneous dinner with friends to the beautiful summer we're finally enjoying. After a quick and brutal round of duck, duck, goose we jogged through Charlton Park before deciding to walk the rest of the way, being unused to such heat in our little island of rain, and cloudy skies. As Bea tells her mum: "it's hot, I don't know how hot it's just either people have told me it's hot or I feel it's hot."

It was lovely to be joined by Tom on the fly before a Lido swim and Cat met us at the common after an eventful and rather hair raising cycle ride over (she'll have to tell you the story).

At the common we were met by the friendly Friends of group who do amazing work coordinating local efforts to keep the common a place for us all to enjoy. Today was a mammoth litter picking session after lots of house removal waste was fly tipped on the common and we spent a while picking up glass, boards and plaster as well as the usual bottles and plastic...and the odd sock.

Well done team, a great effort and lots of reward as the common looked much cleaner after our session there. It was nice to be rewarded by some beautiful blackberries on the way home!

I'll leave us with a poem posting on the Friends of Woolwich Common Fb group the other day which I enjoyed from Brian Bilston’s Days Like These:

It's hard not to feel bitter about the litter

Crochety and cruppish about the rubbish

ill-disposed to all those who ill dispose

but at least business is picking up, i suppose