This evening's session was to finish off the garden cut back that we started a few weeks ago to give the New Langley Community Centre use of its lovely garden again. Last thyme we cut back all the fierce brambles that had literally overgrown over the whole back garden space. A team of 5 of us then spent one hour bashing and beating the brambles back.

Now it was thyme to give it a further cut back and trim. Thyme to crack on! (I'll stop using this pun now)

Lettuce talk about yesterday...

Before I tell you about the rest of the task, lettuce talk about what 5 of us did yesterday! Sandy, Ricky, Claire, Sut and I all ran the Vitality Big Half in London. It was a great race with lots of GoodGym support and runners, but I won't lie...the tunnel of doom (1.5miles in a tunnel) and the cobbled streets (for about another mile) were tough...and the hills? (you might call them slight elevations...I call them hills), I'd forgotten about all that. However, overall we had a great thyme (nope, I'm still using it)!

Rooting for you

Back to today and the session. Three of us met at Langley Memorial Park at 18.15 for our task brief and warm up, before heading out to Harrow Rd (the long way...2km).

On arrival we were met by task owner Angela, who gave us access to the garden and the tools to do the job.

Jean was straight on the strimmer. She literally buzzed away for 45 minutes whilst Claire and I snipped the thorny brambles back. Brambles are a thorn in my side, however, with my new gardening gloves (only taken me 3 years to get a decent pair), I didn't feel a thing as I picked up all the cut backs.

We worked systematically around the garden space getting into every nook and cranny until all the weeds, ivy and brambles were no more!

Next week I am away so Super Sut is taking the realms on the group session - which is on a Wednesday not Monday for next week only! Here is the sign up link.

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/signposting-the-way

What a great transformation we did today!

Five of us attended a community mission to help a local community centre with their overgrown garden, which had become a little bit of a thorn in their side!

Having had seen the garden in my initial visit, I did prewarn the team to wear long sleeved tops, so when Chris and Claire turned up in their shorts and t-shirts I knew it was going to end in shears!

All that and thorn some

In order to get into the back garden we had to systematically cut back the overgrowth and ease our way into the grounds, although Chris had a better idea of just trampling all over it. He then went on to trim back the overgrown grass ready to be mowed down next time.

Helen came prepared with her own cutters and was straight in with getting the vegetation cut back. I knew I was the whimp of the team as every thorn seemed to poke through my gloves - thistle be the end of me!

Sutyee worked her oragmai magic on the corner bush and got that cut right back, whilst Claire took on the grassed area and step by step bootcamped the overgrowth into submission.

This was such a rewarding task to do as you can see the impact you have made in just one short hour. The garden is now useable! Even a little Robin decided that Helen's flapjacks were so yummy that it flew right into our hands to take some!

We look forward to returning to this centre in a few weeks time to finish off the job.