Today 4 Goodgym runners from Richmond and Kingston met Friends of Ham Lands to preserve and enhance the natural habitats and nature reserve.

The site is a mix of habitats, mainly woodland, scrub, grassland and wetlands that contain a diversity of plants and animals, including numerous rare species that are hard to find in London. There are meadow wildflowers that attract bees and butterflies.

Today we were told all about a new plant discovery - "Sand leek", also known as rocambole and Korean pickled-peel garlic, a Eurasian species of wild onion.

After our information session on Sand Leek's and the tour of the different areas currently being worked on within Ham Lands to create an open woodland that will be attractive to butterflies, we set to work cutting back overgrown brambles so that walkers could access a path into the grassland.

I say "work" but this was more like therapy, with talk of late night Christmas parties and an impending weekend of Christmas shopping we felt we needed to grab a pair shears and let rip! And we loved it! We were hooked - in more ways than one with the different brambles and rose bushes hooking themselves into our clothes as we cut them back. The attack did not dampen our spirits and neither did the rain, we kept going until there was a clear pathway for local walkers.

Thank you again to Friends of Ham Lands for inviting us to help with such a worthwhile project , looking forward to the next one!