Walking rescue dogs at SARA - The Association for the Protection of Animals and Plants (not sure how they got the acronym SARA from that but never mind!).

In Lanzarote it turns out that animals are not protected under the law so a rescue has been set up on the island. They rely heavily on local volunteers (big ex-pat community here) to help walk the dogs.

I was lucky to get a lift from a local volunteer and got to walk lovely Richard, Yaico and Donna against the volcanic backdrop.

As I was racing the half marathon the next day they gave me these golden oldies as most of the dogs are untrained and would pull you over! Thanks for being such good boys and girls 🐕🐕🐕

The usual duo of Adi and Paul picked litter in two parts of Lewisham - the former in Sydenham’s Mayow Park, the latter in Deptford’s Brookmill Park.

Paul found lots of plastic brought down by recent high flows on the Ravensbourne - around a couple of black bags full, a lot more than recent weeks. There was also an abandoned shopping trolley to report via Love Clean Streets.

There was other activity along the Ravensbourne too, the herons were nesting! This is several weeks earlier than last year.

It felt like no time since we were last at The Albany! It had only been a couple of weeks but on this visit we had a bigger task to tackle...shifting lots of woodchip that had been kindly donated to The Albany.

We split into groups and rotated through the roles of shoveling, wheelbarrowing and path creating. It was very satisfying to see the pile of woodchip slowly but surely reducing in size but what was even more satisfying was joining up the paths!!

It wasn't long before we'd shovelled as much woodchip as we could and made lots of new paths.

The last time we created a path at The Albany was many moons ago when we all looked quite a bit younger and before some people had even discovered GoodGym! We featured on BBC Breakfast for that path creation! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G3fKxb6Mcz0&pp=ygUVR29vZGd5bSBiYmMgYnJlYWtmYXN0

Next week we're off to Lewisham Unity with a stop off at the Catford Christmas Tree

Ms Y has a sweet tooth and she is taking full advantage of the offers that the Co-Op is having during the McVitie’s Chocolate Digestive Centenary - the big packet was much cheaper than the small packet this week, so she celebrated with some plain digestives too!

For the avoidance of doubt, all biscuits were paid for!

This week’s shop for the lovely Mr J followed a similar pattern to recent weeks - dropping something off at his GP’s surgery; buying pumpkin, plantain and beetroot from the market, along with a range of things at ASDA. The one thing that was different was the request to buy a toilet brush from a 99p shop. I did explain that it would probably be more than that due to inflation. I did find one that seemed appropriate, which Mr J though was perfect and proclaimed that I was a ‘Toilet Brush Expert!’ I will add this to the virtual crown for being ‘King of the Bowl’ at Catford parkrun. In case you inadvertently link the two, ‘The Bowl’ is the name given to a flat area of the course and I am the only volunteer who correctly places them according to the Event Director.

This is one of my regular missions - I’d dropped off the lovely Ms E’s heavy laundry at the laundrette close to where I live. She has a small flat and finds it difficult to dry the washing at home. She used to take it to the laundrette herself but her mobility issues now make this impossible. Today’s task was picking it up for Ms E and taking it back to her fla t and having a chat with her.