Five of us braved the cold to head out litter picking up on the precinct this evening. Armed with litter pickers (some a little better than others...) and bin bags we toured the street collecting discarded coffee cups, beer cans, ATM receipts, straws, coffee stirrers, bottle tops and even a piano keyboard!

It was certainly no trouble finding stuff to pick up since it was everywhere. A little competition arose where rubbish points were awarded:

• 5 points for empty beer cans
• 4 points for crisp wrappers
• 3 points for chocolate bar wrappers

Then the beer and cider cans started appearing and we stopped being quite as good and shoving each other out the way to collect more points. When one drunkard suggested he would tip over a bin to provide loads of points we decided we had done enough good and headed back, via a public bin, into which we crammed our pickings.

We're not sure who got most points. There were a few cider cans and vodka bottles, and we weren't sure what they were worth. EVERYONE'S A WINNER!

Litter pickers dropped off we did a mini-fitness session.

• There is no lack of hills around, so we figured we may as well learn a few tricks for getting up them. We practised cadence and arm drive (including elbowing each other - definitely the most aggressive running drill)

• Then a game of secret surges with a twist: instead of giving everybody a secret number, everybody was given two animals (well, the names of two animals. Not their given names like "Snowy" or "Rover", but the actual animal, like "dog" or "hippo". In fact "hippo" was given out twice, then I couldn't remember what I'd given out or who had had what or who had been. You know what, I'm gonna stick to numbers in the future). Each time your animal is called out you have to surge away from the rest of the group who must give chase. Fastest animal of the night was a Chinchilla. Well done, Gary.

• Finally a game of "lunge, high knees, skip, sprint" - which doesn't really need much explanation - before a final surge home and a little stretch while petting pups!

Wonderful litter picking and top training everybody. Great to meet you all. Lydia's back next week and I'm looking forward to covering again on the 23rd, Until then,
Simon