The terrible weather forecast meant an unavoidable late cancellation of tonight's task. Torrential rain is not the best conditions for an outdoor painting job!

So instead of heading to Gusford School we had a hastily arranged litter pick task along the river path instead.

We were actually very lucky as we had dry window of opportunity between 5.00pm and 8.30pm which meant the Goodgymers that took the risk of getting wet didn't see a spot of rain though it is chucking down as I write this back at home!

The area we concentrated our litter picking on was between the skate park and Princes Street bridge - our brief for this area on behalf of Rivercare is to prevent litter and particularly plastic going into the water. We were also helping wich Ipswich Borough Council's Big Clean Up #DiGBYSaysKeepIpswichClean

We started at the skate park end where there are a couple of really "gathering" areas and these were particularly badly littered.

We always have a little competition on our litter picking tasks to see who can find the most unusual item. Tonight there wasn't really anything strikingly odd - there were loads of beer cans but the striking thing was we collected almost a full set of crockery/cutlery and items that could have hosted a dinner party - none matched or appeared to be connected - a fork, spoon, knife, mug, plate and glass. Alongside the numerous beer cans was (empty) bottles of prosecco, whisky and vodka - must have been some party!

In total we collected 4 full sacks of rubbish , making a significant impact on litter alongside the river.

We had a team photo in the skate park alongside one of the ramps which has been painted with a quote to celebrate the life of a young skate boarder from Ipswich who died recently. The words are one of his catchphrases - simple and poignant but unfortunately not relevant for this evening's climate.

We took a bit of a loop to run back to base incorporating a couple of repetitions up the steep incline of Willoughby Road before heading back to base, celebrating that we seen more (can) cans than the Moulin Rouge and dodged a soaking!!