In preparation for a coastal marathon, the Friends of Langstone Harbour were cutting back overhanging brambles and trees at the Milton / Eastney end of the shorepath.

I joined the litter picking crew and filled a sack with large and small pieces of polystyrene and plenty of other plastics.

A satisfying morning in the sunshine.

We had a great time carrying out a review of the signage along the first part of the Langstone Harbour Shoreline walk.

At the start, we learnt what interdiction signs are so we could look out for them alongside blaze marks, signposts and interpretation boards.

We all identified the boards and stickers which Sammy expertly photographed, some of which were placed high up, some were old, some defaced, some confusing and some just blank.

We heroically waded through the mud around Eastney Lake only noticing afterwards the 👻 warning us that wading was prohibited.

At Swan Lake we enacted a beautiful scene from the ballet, which I'm sure the kind passerby who took our photo found very moving.

It should have been a beach clean with the Friends of Langstone Harbour, but a misjudgement of the distance from PO3 to PO9 meant that we litter picked independently instead!

Big cheers to first-timer Nia & to Katie L who switched from tree planting to litter picking in the rain! And well done to Nick who took the sensible approach to litter pick part of Langstone Harbour nearer to the car park.

Meanwhile, Lou, Val and I incorporated a 6K walk with a pathway litter pick.

Between us, we still managed to make a section of the Langstone Harbour footpaths and shoreline a little cleaner.

2 Goodgymers planted and wrapped Hazel trees for the Tree wardens. We booked Goodgym in to come and do a little pick in 2 years time to remove the sapling wrappers! Lovely to be part of this rewilding project.

Who knew beach cleaning was a dangerous sport?!

For this litter pick with the Friends of Langstone Harbour, we had to risk 4 lanes of fast traffic and then abseil down a concrete cliff - without a harness!

Sam, Betsy & Tony were brave and descended to the mud flats.

Maura, Nick and I stayed at road level and between us all we collected 5 large bags in less than 2 hours.

Now we understand why the Friends group call this the 'dirty corner' of Langstone Harbour, but we prevented a bit less rubbish being washed out to sea.