Fabulous progress in the Battle of the Bramble at Brunswick with Mark joining for his first visit.

Knowing his prowess with a saw at Ashton Court, he set to on a mahonia and buddleia to reduce the height and dragged his “clippings” to the growing pile of green waste for the gardeners to collect.

We also made progress on paths, de-butter cupping and chopping back some of the smaller tall grasses.

2026 is looking good in the cemetery!

There was chopping-a-plenty to clear autumn chopping back in time for the Morris Dancers at next week’s Wassail - twigs chopped into bags and big branches saved for a future dead hedge.

It’s a site we’ve helped at before and great to see the community making good use of the space with plans for making it even better for nature as well as locals.

With chopping, raking, brushing and lifting it was a good workout for us an we’re invited to the Wassail next week - win/win!

A cold start to the day, but things had warmed up a bit by the time Frances and Paul arrived at the task. Rich and Janka arrived shortly after, having come from the Northern Slopes mission a little earlier.

We raked away any grass cuttings allowing for the light to get through and disturbing the top level of soil. Hopefully the wildflowers should get off to a good start.

Plenty of people passed us walking their dogs so we left the gift of a tempting looking stick that we found - not tempting enough apparently.

At the end there was time a glass of the latest batch of Manor Woods apple juice and the very last of the Christmas biscuits and mince pies - thanks Martin!

A climb up to the 11th floor to help Mr T with removing an old armchair from his flat and then assembling a new one to put in it’s place 💺

A crisp but surprisingly sunny day awaited us on the Northern Slopes. Today's task was to cut back a large ensemble of brambles so passers by see the area as less of a dumping ground. After an hour ish we had to stop shearing and you could really see the difference. Just time for a biscuit before heading on our way.

Until next time...

The shed might have been locked but our survey of future tasks (happening to pass the pens of farm animals) we chanced across a shopping trolley that had been dumped so jumped in to rescue and return it to ASDA - definitely a good deed and a workout where ALL the chambers of pavements and road are hugely magnified!