6 people made up of local residents and Goodgym members joined forces today to conquer our continuous bug bear...litter!

We met at Old Kingston Road close to Tolworth Court Farm Fields , home to woodmice, field voles and roe deer. Unfortunately surrounding this nature reserve is a sea of rubbish, and the council and local residents felt it was in desperate need of a good clean up.

We got to work loading bags and bags of litter, some of which had ivy growing on top of it as well as many bottles buried in the earth next to the road side. We even found a can that had been there for over 30 years, how do I know this? It had an old ring pull and after some research I discovered they stopped making these retro ring pulls in 1990!

As we worked, new GoodGymer Cherise who was on her first Community Mission told me about a story she read as a child: "Great dynamo and the wandering weed" from Skylark short stories. Cherise re-told the story to me of a villagers who learnt of the destruction of littering on their small town after Mother Nature took revenge and released a wandering weed every time someone dropped a piece of litter - something for us all to think about eh?

Thank you to Cherise for being so full of energy and enthusiasm - a real dynamo! and to the other local residents who helped out and thanks to Alison for organising the litter pick and for locating a wheelbarrow which gave us a "lidl" extra help with the larger pieces of rubbish 😉.