It Was Litterly Cold Last Night

In hindsight, we couldn’t find it. Litter. At the great December litter pick, where was the litter?

We met by Charlton House, grand and stately (the house, I mean), and we chatted about plenty things, but mostly the cold. Because the thermostat dial had plummeted and there were icicles forming on the ends of our noses. Huddled, and moved from the grass to avoid some spontaneous forming dog muck, we discussed French pronunciation.

Blan-C-mange, said Alex. Bluh-monj, said everyone else.

A popular dessert in the eighties, but apparently not since, we considered other sweet culinary delights and we indulged and imagined what type of dessert we were. In GoodGym Greenwich, as you might have suspected, we’re an incredibly sweet group comprising a flan, a tiramisu, an apple crumble, a pavlova, a jelly, and an ice-cream sundae!

But not sugar-coating it, the area started to stink due to the spontaneous forming dog muck, and so we moved to the Charlton House green. Here, we warmed up with an improvised version of Stuck In The Mud – with a shouted ‘1!’, Julian chased us, but we could only walk, and we pumped our arms and legs furiously and it felt like we were flying, but we were actually moving really quite slowly – with a bellowed ‘2!’, we side-stepped until our adductor muscles nearly detached from our thighs – and with a ‘3!’, we sprinted around and around and around (until Julian or Chan caught us)!

Warmed and out of breath, we headed to Charlton’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital where unfortunately there’s quite a lot of ‘litter’. And I’m talking fast food waste, discarded masks, and other bits of rubbish. And there was plenty to fill bin bags with, which we got to in teams of three so that either side of the road got a good and healthy sprucing.

But – litter! I thought we were out to find litter! In the traditional sense of the word, etymologically meaning BED, from the Latin, lectus. I thought I was going to have a nice sleep – a great December sleep!! And I was mighty tired, and it was awfully cold, but instead – we picked up rubbish. I’ll have words with the run leader, I can assure you…

Still, by 8pm, us two teams had picked two bin bags of ‘litter’, and we headed back to Charlton House along much cleaner and healthier roads. Great work everyone and looking forward to the next time!