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

Report title in celebration of Ness, who intrepidly stomped through the brambles, creating safe passage to the compost bin in the PARCs garden.

We certainly needed access, there were a huge number of weeds that needed our attention! Many hands made light work though, and the courtyard area of the garden was looking spiffing in no time! Conversations included the practical application of degrees, and then reminiscing about the long-closed night clubs of Portsmouth.

Laura and David headed through to the front garden area, and cleared another huge amount of weeds. This was a little trickier, as these ones were growing through concrete!

Commendable efforts, everyone, this peaceful space is now back in action.