We had a bit of an unusual session this week, stretching our creative muscles rather than our physical ones. I think this was very much appreciated in the sudden cold snap - great numbers tonight!

Dave and Sinéad kept to Gym in GoodGym for us, with a couple of laps of the churchyard before joining us in the community centre to get creating.

We had beautiful table pieces, wreaths, orange peel tree hangings, hand-decorated garlands and some very intricate and mathematical giant baubles. Wilson showed true determination, and with the help of Maxine and baby Margaux completed their challenge! Katie and Vicki were another dream team, producing another masterpiece.

Special thanks to Judy for her creativity, resources and epic foraging skills for providing us with such a lovely task this evening. It was truly wonderful!

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

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.