Took S along to Southsea park run for a foggy yet rather mild run! Then had a drink on the pier. 558 runners today!

The weather gods were kind to us and paused the rain just long enough for us to fill a big, black bag of rubbish and have a good catch up.

The Fratton Together Lantern Parade brought the usual chaos, creativity and carnival vibes this year!

After attaching lights and sticks to the lanterns, we prepared ourselves for the tidal wave of local residents arriving to claim their makes for the parade. As usual, the best laid plans for lantern distribution went awry, but we were able to reunite most lanterns with their makers ahead of the parade.

We enjoyed the samba beats of batala as we paraded through Fratton. Dave found a creative way to get around his lantern not having a stick - check out the photos! Whilst carrying some larger lanterns, we were able to marshal the parade safely from start to finish. After enjoying our complimentary cups of tea, we did an extra bit of GoodGyming, carrying lanterns that were too big for cars and vans back to the Pantry.

We ventured out of the city this evening, with a slightly shifty-looking rendezvous in Sainsbury's car park. Walking and running groups made their way uphill to St Andrew's Church, where we met up with Chris, the church's volunteer gardener.

An impressive array of tools made their way from Chris' car to the compost area, where we set to work loading the contents of a make-shift compost heap into bags. This will allow Chris to build a functioning container for the compost, keeping things much tidier.

In her enthusiam, Judy somehow managed to upturn a whole shovel-full of compost over Ness, who in turn nearly took David's head off with a pitchfork. I wonder if I might need to work on my risk assessments! Wilson unearthed a 10ft python* whilst digging, which Ness kindly and carefully moved to a safe new home.

We certainly worked up an appetite, but luckily Val provided some tasty brownie bites to fuel our run back.

*it was a slow worm

Well done to mini GGer, Jack, for seeking out the interesting and unusual finds at Tipner shoreline! These included large pieces of rope, a flip-flop and 2 different-sized wheels.

With Laura, Katie and I to help pick up the smaller bits (including, of course, a sock!) we made a visible difference to the beach in just 45 minutes. Four heavy sacks of litter collected, and less litter to return to the sea on the next high tide.

Hopes dashed that the rain would hold off, I set about giving the rec a clear up.

Plenty of cans found. A used firework remnant! A hat, as there is always clothing! And spookiest of all (albeit slightly late for halloween), a bubblegum wrapper. Not scary on its own, however the 'are you afraid of the dark' podcast I was listening to had a discussion on bubblegum flavours at exactly the moment I spotted it.