This morning, three GoodGymmers met up to help clear some brambles for a housing association in Camden.

Before I get too far into the minutiae of bramble cutting, massive shout-out to Maryam, who joined Beth and I on her first ever GoodGym task! Welcome and woot to you! 🥳🦉

And now onto the main feature!

Before getting started on the bramble cutting, our contact, Tilly, gave us a quick rundown of the history of the space. Although the council had previously provided a gardener, this service had stopped unexpectedly. Since then, the brambles had run rampant. Tilly was hopeful that she would be able to keep on top of the garden on behalf of the tenants if we were able to give it an initial clear.

With our brief in mind, we surveyed the wilderness: It would definitely take more than a single session to get rid of everything. However, we were keen to get started on phase 1 of the project, which I nicknamed Operation Changing Blooms.

All three of us armed ourselves with hedge shears and got to it, happily snapping at the enemy while chatting about too many topics to name (bar my cat, who will always get a mention and will get a special mention when he has a new cat toy (it vibrates!!! 😻)). Tilly kindly provided us with some bottled water as we worked to keep us hydrated and to keep the conversation flowing. Tilly most definitely did not offer us the GoodGym equivalent of a vibrating cat toy in the form of an electric hedge trimmer 😅

Regardless of the means by which we powered through the task, an hour and a half of work yielded some impressive results. We cut down a large section of the front part, and even found a path running through the garden!

With our time drawing to a close, we finished with a spot of cleanup while admiring Beth's newly acquired scratches (from the brambles and not from my perfect cat, obv). We're all keen to return and get shot of more brambles in phase 2 of the project, Operation Soon-shot (look out for details over the next couple of weeks!)

Beth, Maryam; it was great working with you guys. Hopefully see you at the next installment! 😄