The one with the Christmas robin…

By the time of our Christmas cleanup the early-December snows had dispersed, but the volume of heavy litter in the river at Plough Lane wasn’t going anywhere by itself…

… which could only mean one thing: another winter warmer wrestling rubbish off the river gravels that we guess are down there somewhere!

Slowly but surely, a familiar mix of detritus emerged, and some of the rubbish looked strangely familiar: a car seat that matched one we’d found in June, and an awful lot more carpet…

Everyone on the bank rotated through the long push back to the collection area specified by our friends at Merton Council, but one thing’s for certain, it kept us warm… and Alice’s genius mobility-scooter-with-trailer certainly got some of us thinking: what about quad bikes?

Thanks to our volunteer caterers, Christmas coffee was even more festive than last year, complete with tinsel and poinsettias…

… soup and 2 kinds of cake from Jo, home-baked bread from Rob, mince pies from Sally, and genuine northern treacle parkin from Jez and Ailis…

… and while we made merry with all these good things, a Christmas robin hopped around on the rubbish pile…

… enjoying his own special smorgasbord of shrimp, caddis and hoglice we’d provided from the river…

… all served up on a bed of 25 tyres, more than 10 carpets, at least 10 pieces of board, 7 sheets of foam, 2 traffic cones, 2 corrugated plastic sheets, 1 lorry tarpaulin, 1 car seat, 1 shopping trolley, 1 golf bag, 1 garden chair, 1 pushchair, 1 radiator, 1 mattress, 1 corrugated iron sheet, 1 metal pipe, 1 washing machine, 1 garden hose, 1 saucepan, 1 toaster, 1 plastic Christmas tree and many more broken toys, bits of metal and other unidentifiable rubbish!

Thanks to all our volunteers: Abi, Adrian, Alice, Andy B, Ann, Barry, David, Doug, Erica, Gordon, Helen, Henry, Hugh, Jan, Jason, Jez, Jo H, Jo S, John B, John N, John P, Judith, Keith, Khamisi, Leonie, Leonard, Meryn, Paul, Rob T, Rob W, Roger, Rory, Sally and Theo