After our painting talk in Poppleton was cancelled last minute due to soggy furniture, Barbara identified the perfect spot for a litter pick, in the pretty little village of Knapton. Why perfect? Well...

1) There was a veritable olfactory treasure trove of litter. Highlights included not one but two cans of Impulse body spray ( great for early noughties nostalgia) AND a pyramid- shaped glass aftershave bottle. Those Knapton folk clearly take pride in their smell! (We won’t mention the multiple bottles of suspicious- looking yellow fluid - we'll blame the passing motorists for those.)

2) We just so happened to finish our litter pick just down the road from John and Sally Bourton's house. In fact, John joined us with his impressive state- of- the- art litter picking trolley. He also told us that he’d litter-picked the same area only about a week ago so our 6(!) bags- worth of litter had accumulated since then. Oh, and we also saw Lizzie K who lives locally and told us that the village had been planninga litter pick to address the mass of rubbish that had built up, so we’ve hopefully saved them a job ( or postponed them needing to do it, anyway!) As well as it being lovely that John was able to join us, he also kindly invited us back to his lovely house for coffee and biscuits, despite the fact that he and Sally were expecting visitors later! While there, I picked John and Sally's brains on their bird- feeding set up and got some good squirrel- deterrence tips!

All in all, a lovely afternoon, making the most of a last-minute task cancellation. Thank you Barbara for coming up with a great alternative task so quickly!