Our adoption of a stretch of the canal, leading out from Birmingham City Centre, reached a new stage today. We joined up with Beth from the Canal and River Trust to have a purge on the overgrown and untidy plant beds running alongside the canal. The aim is to reduce the amount of bush growth which have become a place to hide syringes, beer cans and have become used for rough sleeping. So, while the pun is a lighthearted look back to Jeremy Beadle’s entertainment shows of the eighties, it was also a major topic of the safety debrief given by Beth as we got together to make a start. All of which made the CRT people a bit nervous that we were all wearing running shoes, not the sort of thickness of sole that would protect us well. So we were very much warned to watch where we tread.

Armed with this knowledge, and plenty of gardening tools, we walked with Beth to our new section of the canal. I went to work on a small tree with a pair of secateurs, while Laura took out the bigger branches and smaller parts of the trunk with a handsaw. Ben and Amy teamed up to equal effect on a neighbouring tree, before Liam joined us and got incredibly handy with a fork, clearing piles of vegetation, branches and ivy which had collected. Soon, we were all doing the same as him, moving piles of cut down waste into a big pile that would be chopped up for compost by the CRT team on Sunday. All the while it was getting colder and colder, I was getting the shakes and most of us couldn’t feel our hands anymore. Despite the temperatures, we made good progress on this section, bringing it mostly back to the soil in anticipation of planting fruit trees. Most of us went home shattered and frozen just after 1pm, leaving Ben and Beth to do the finishing touches before the second community mission tomorrow. I hope it is a bit warmer for you all.