It was a lot warmer than forecast and, as ever, plenty of jobs to choose from at the Cemetery Gardens.

Helen set to on a flower bed with lots of Jerusalem Sage seed heads to sacrifice whilst George continued his grass clearance in a different flower bed and Melanie was still clearing buttercup seed heads (and some with roots and all) from the paths and between the tomb stones. We’re never short of a place to tidy!

A few photos of both progress today and the general loveliness of the unbaked cemetery- and more next week!

A great task for Mr M today - grass cutting and bramble bashing! On arrival, Mr M presented me with a brand new pair of shears as when we were last there, we noticed that his old pair were missing.

On retrieving the lawn mower from the store cupboard, I saw a pair of shears there but bizarrely these were not Mr M’s 🤔

The priority, as usual was to get the grass cut and once that was done, I spent the remaining time cutting back the brambles in the backyard and the new shears were sharp and well up to the task 🎉

It’s great to hear that Mr M has managed to do a little bit in the garden too - just 20 minutes here and there but every GoodGym visit seems to empower him to do more. A great result all round ☺️

4 GGs met at our weekly farm task on a beautiful morning. This week we brushed and cleared weeds near to the wheel barrow zone. With a sieve we separated foliage and recycled the lovely soil that had accumulated in the cracks in the path. Then a treat to see the new geese who were a bit over eager to see us but we were able to gander them into the encloser with the help of the animal warden. A final gandering photo and we we took flight 🪿

Wonderful as always to hook up with Richard and descend (or rather ascend) on Mrs R in BS7 to trim the hedges in her front and back gardens and cut back some bushes and trees.

I took on the hedges whilst Richard tackled the bushes and trees and tidied up behind me.

Great to catch up and who’d’ve thought we’d end up on the subject of Miley Cyrus and Stevie Nicks?!! 😳

On a perfect evening we gathered like excitable meerkats outside Workout. The chief meerkat briefed us on our mission this evening and we headed off.

A return visit to Hebron Burial Ground, this time to work on clearing back the brambles to the fence. The usual eclectic mix of topics were discussed this evening. The most controversial perhaps being whether Edward Scissorhands is misnamed as he actually has knives for hands? Edward Knifehands sounds a bit too sinister maybe? Whatever, he would have been quite useful this evening in our topiary mission. We are in prime bush snacking season at the moment so we nibbled on the berries to keep us energised while we snipped away. In a New York 40ish minutes we downed tools and headed back with only a few battle wounds to nurse.

A special mention to Paul who delivered leaflets in Easton this evening. Well done 🙂

Until next time…

It was great to welcome George to GoodGym Bristol and Brunswick Cemetery, where there was (as ever) a variety of tasks to get our teeth into.

Having started on some deep-rooted weeds on the spiral path whilst I was nearby weeding some of the shrubs that some “helper” had strummed to ground level in early spring, we discovered the heatwave had revealed A METAL EDGE marking the end of the grass and beginning of flowerbed. This was declared VERY EXCITING INDEED and George showed his flexibility by switching to de-grassing the bit we now know should be flowerbed.

Such exciting times, and together with 5 of the Friends of Brunswick, we left a huge pile of brambles, branches and bags of weeds for the Council to collect.

Brilliant to meet you at the community mission, George - here’s to many more!