On this cloudy, calm evening, 12 GGers tuned up to Gunnersbury Park for a fourth (but definitely not last!) instalment of removing brambles from around the trees in the main woodland of the park. As well as the familiar faces from Hounslow we also had JP from Richmond and Callum & Alex from Ealing. But best of all, our official GG Hounslow mascot Watson, Remy’s beautiful puppy, was there to keep us company too.

After collecting the usual tools – wheel barrows full of shears & rakes and massive canvas sacks for the refuse – we made our way down to the now-familiar trees which, despite still being surrounded by the thick thorny plants, are starting to become a little more visible and the paths wider.

By now we are like a well-oiled machine and we quickly set to work, some of us using shears to cut through the brambles, the others raking away the resulting mess and carefully – or not – throwing it into the sacks. Callum from Ealing was new to the task and so I explained that we were there to try and get rid of this invasive plant which is taking over paths and drowning the trees.

This task is a great chance to chat and catch up with each other. We discussed the quality & price of different gardening gloves that the group has acquired – gosh we are so cool – turns out some gloves are better than others are protecting you from thorns… but we are hardened GoodGymmers and we don’t let a few massive thorny branches stop us!

We made good progress once again, or, as Michelle puts it, ‘created a path of destruction’. As the skies started to darken, some cut-down brambles did get left on the ground for next time (and amongst these I found what seemed to be a recently-drunk can of Strongbow cloudy apple cider and longed for the days when we could all sit in the Old Pack Horse pub with a pint after group runs). But we picked up as much as we could and started heading back towards North Lodge. We had four heavy sacks full of brambles and it was a team effort to drag them all back with us.

After putting everything back (but not before Luis had the privilege of fixing Michelle’s bike) each runner, walker and cyclist left the park having finished another successful brambling mission. Plenty more of it to be done and we need as many people as we can get – please join us next time!