Both caught out by the high tide en route to today's community mission, Jane whilst running and Samia whilst cycling. Both unable to go through it, both concluding "we'll have to go round it" (as the tale goes). And to different pubs we went - Samia had made a fatal taskforce error in getting the location muddled and had wrongly decided that the White Swan was one of the venues for the #2minutelitterpick. One advantage was that this did mean that she got to see the coolest Rudolph outside a cottage and obviously had to take a photo of it.

Jane, on the other hand, had some psychic powers and went to the White Cross - no, not the listed venue, but the correct one! Sorry Jane and thank you for your superpowers! And the second bonus meant that Jane took some lovely scenic shots of the river at Christmas time.

After the tide and pub sagas, we were eventually united and found the A-frame at the White Cross, with litter picking stick and bags attached, and adorned with instructions. We donned our Santa hats, grabbed the picker, took a bag and got plogging along the tow path, chatting about our plans for Christmas and Boxing Days, and whether either of us will make a parkrun...

With the bag filling up (more like the "20minutelitterpick" in our case!), we found a bin to empty the contents into, and returned the picker and bag back to base to be used by the next #2minutelitterpick-ers.

What a great initiative, making it so easy to do some good for the environment. Here's to many more #2minutelitterpick community missions come 2019. Thank you Jane for trialling our first attempt of it (and a good idea it was to trial it given my pub error!) and being wonderful Christmas Eve company - and have a very merry Christmas!