A bright clear October morning saw us gathering to help Manor Woods Valley Group prepare for their apple picking event next weekend. The harvested apples will be sent away for pasteurisation with the juice being shared between volunteering sessions and Withywood food bank.

We used shears to cut away any brambles and undergrowth that might restrict access to the fruit trees.

A productive morning spent in amongst the colourful Autumn leaves with the usual tea break at the end ☕️

Danica has put together a short video of the session here

…. and strim, with a bit of weeding and bramble bashing thrown in for the lovely and very grateful Mrs M 😊

It's definitely dark at 6.45 now, a twilight/twiiterlight walk and run to Brunswick Cemetery where we met Di and the tree popper/root puller. It's a genius invention for clamping on roots and using a fulcrum to lever the root out - physics meets gardening!

There was lots going on at the spiral with path being widened - the rain had made the ground give up the weeds more easily but the gravel path was dry enough to sit or kneel on - perfect for weeding and chatting GoodGym style.

Everyone who'd been at the task was also coming to Eats so an incentive to get tidied up and on our way for more chat and an unexpected casual game of dominos at Turtle Bay, though the domino rally was thwarted by the real wood unevenness of the tables. There was identification of the reggae versions of 80s tunes, there was awe at Richard G's hand-knitted bee race medal, there was planning for keeping Melanie sane-ish after her foot operation. Marianne took over responsibility for the Loaned Padlock, promising shed cone along on Tuesday except the one where she's Morris Dancing for a TV dating show's fake summer fair. All good slightly bonkers loveliness. Standard stuff for GG Bristol.

A simple one today. Clear a path along the bottom of the embankment that we have previously climbed like mountain goats. More work to do clear brambles but we made a good start. Short report today as I’m going on a plant hunt.

Until next time…

A return visit to Mr M to give his grass a (possible) last cut of the year, but most importantly to clear the surrounding pathway of the overgrowing shrubs, hedge and brambles to make this safe for pedestrians and avoid any problems with the council.

It was heartwarming to see also that Mr M had managed to take on some bramble clearance himself in his backyard, since my last visit, reminding me that missions can be as much about empowerment as safety and wellbeing 💪❤️

Leaflets. Predominantly made of paper. A cornucopia of words and images designed to elicit a response from those that receive them.

This evening we were delivering these bundles of papery joy to the denizens of St Werburghs. Splitting into two groups we covered some of the local roads. The leaflets needing several folds to go through some of the trickier letter boxes. It wasn't long before we ran out of leaflets and we were done. Weeding anyone?

For fans of road names these are the ones we did:

Horley rd.
Sandbed rd.
Tyne st.
Cleave st (evens).
2/3 Mogg Street to 31 odd, 18 even.

Until next time...