And so we've returned again to our monthly spot for our conservation work with the Friends of Ham Lands in the butterfly habitat. Once we'd followed santa and located our friends, it was established that we would call our meeting points 'bollards' or 'Tesco spot' for future monthly reunions!

As we'd successfully joined our Ham Lands friends, we were given some brief, familiar health and safety reminders and the instructions for the task of widening the path by clearing brambles, cleavers ( also known as 'sticky willy') and other plants that had become entangled.

We broke off into teams to tackle different areas of the path. Laura found hacking at the overgrowth with her loppers was most effective for clearing and Jane came to her aid by using her loppers to pull stalks out of their entangled masses along the path to add to our mound.

Nicky and Samia worked on the other side of the path to work on opening up the middle section. They enjoyed cutting pieces that were longer than themselves!

Holly and Jenni worked across the path and gathered bits that others had been snipping and Africa called out for the large loppers to strategically move deeper through the over grown brambles.

As Jane pulled stalks and Laura hacked away a festive song began to emerge:

🎶 🎵 Bramble fells, bramble fells, bramble all the way!

Oh what fun it is to snip on a one-cloud, gusty day! Hay!

Bashing through the thorns on a one-cloud gusty day, Ov'r the mud we go, laughing all the way! 🎶 🎵

When songs had been sung, paths had been widened and the mounds piled up, we had a quick glance over our work with pride and said farewell to our friends that we'll be returning to see next in the new year so it was a "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good deed!" 🎅🏽🎄🎁🎉