Mrs R has somewhat of a bramble issue in her back garden. Both Charlotte and Dave had past experience of this but it was new to me. Given this it was disconcerting to find the traditional 'choose your weapon' stage of the afternoon boiled down to a pair of shears and two pairs of secateurs.

Not to worry though, Charlotte was soon wielding the shears with the confident nonchalance of an intrepid explorer, charting new trails through ancient rain forest and had quickly cleared enough space for us all to at least spread out a bit more effectively.

Meanwhile Dave and I employed the secateurs to trim the brambles into the large paper sacks provided - and to make one or two daring forays into the areas Charlotte hadn't yet reached.

We filled four sacks in no time and with Dave taking possession of the prized shears to continue a path further still into the lost world we felt confident that given another visit and a few more sacks it might be possible to reclaim this space for Mrs R as a garden once more