One-off Challenge 10: Volunteer For A Local Charity Event

Sunday was mostly occupied by preparations for Renae heading off to America, while the bank holiday Monday was mostly spent saving the post-apocalyptic world from semi-sentient animal-machines, so it's time to dust off a blog-post-I-wrote-earlier!

This challenge is courtesy of...

Andy Law, who provided a lot of suggestions!  Expect to see his name here again soon.

The challenge

This is a fairly straightforward challenge.  In fact, I volunteer every two weeks at the local Cub pack, so I'd probably have ticked this off at some point in the year without trying, but that's rather against the spirit of this whole year.  So I'm volunteering at a new event, namely our village clean up day.

Armed and ready to tidy

Now, anyone who knows me will tell you that cleaning up is not exactly my normal modus operandi.  In fact, we sub-contract that particular part of our life to a very nice woman who comes round to our house once a fortnight and ensures we don't live in absolute squalor.  So voluntarily spending a precious Sunday morning tidying up the village is not normally high on my list.

It turns out to be a glorious day.  We've gone from endless winter to early summer rather suddenly this year, but I'm not complaining.  The sun is out, a gentle breeze rustles in the trees and the scent of blossom is on the air.  The babies, Renae and I troop up to the park (all of twenty yards from our door - it takes us about five minutes to get Xavi and Sephie to actually walk there).  On arrival, we're kitted out with a plastic bag and a pair of litter grabbing tongs.  We then spend a very pleasant half hour wandering around the woods, occasionally picking up the odd scrap of litter.  The babies find many leaves, feathers and pine cones, all of which are declared to be "dirt" and dumped in the bin bag.  After a while, we wander back to the park, where Renae and Sephie stop for a play on the swings.  Xavi and I continue on our litter hunt.  By the end of an hour's picking, we have about half a bag of rubbish which goes in the village skip, along with the many other bits of junk gathered by my fellow concerned citizens.

Xavi, helping

Then we have some soup in the park and go home.

This volunteering lark is easy!

Challenge complete.

Will I be doing it again?

The village clean up, probably.  Volunteering for other things that can't be done with the family, maybe not so much.  There's only so many hours in the day, and I'm feeling the crunch with all the other stuff I'm doing this year.  How people like Lindsay Law manage it, I don't know!

Long-term updates

French words "learned" (according to the memrise app): 272

Daily photos taken? Yes, although I forgot to post two until the day after.  Oops.

Swordfighting learnt: A bunch of basic stances, cuts and theories, courtesy of the lovely Jason, who took us under his wing at no notice at all.

I am currently reading: Nothing. However, as mentioned, Renae is off to the States, so that'll change this week!

"Cheat" days on food since last week: None. However, as mentioned, Renae is off to the States, so that'll change this week!

"Cheat" days on exercise: several.  This is clearly going to be my biggest challenge this year.  Sigh.