Another warm night for the assembled GoodGymmers to tackle the bramble takeover at Hebron Burial Ground - that which was looking clear in Spring is definitely NOT now, so we took on the task of clearing some space (and eating berries from the older growth. Brambles without berries? What is the point?!

Lewis joined us for his first task and made short work of the path to the compost heap with Jason, Tom and Rach otoived there was an elderflower/berry tree in the middlenof the brambles whilst Caroline, Richard and Frances tried to meet Melanie on the other side of the space where berries COULD be seen. Alas, nor quite enough time, but at least 3 cats were seen

...You owe me five farthings, Say the bells of St. Martin's.

When will you pay me? Say the bells at Old Bailey.

When I grow rich, Say the bells at Shoreditch.

When will that be? Say the bells of Stepney.

I do not know, Says the great bell at Bow.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed, And here comes a chopper to chop off your hedge! Chip chop chip chop the last man is dead.

Slightly contrived, throwback to a children's nursery rhyme that many of you have probably never heard, but there you go. Education.

We were very close to being rained off having not seen rain for weeks BUT we are known for being a pretty hardy bunch and insisted we'd be fine - as was the weather for our task at Dame Emily Park.

Armed with shears, loppers, secateurs and a lot of energy, the hedge (site of last year's skilled shaping and sycamore tree removal) was significantly shortened from around 9 foot to 5-ish, to improve line-of-sight and reduce anti-social behaviour.

Split into big choppers and small choppers, hedge was turned to mulch to be used elsewhere in the Community Garden and we were soon being rewarded with slices of fresh watermelon and posh amaretti biscuits - the perfect amuse bouche for our July Eats meal at Sooyan/Sweeyan/Sooayan back at Queen Square.

Another GoodGym Bristol triumph!

It's hot. Again. But we were headed to a shady spot. So shady, the planting is suffering in the heat and needing mulch around them to help keep the roots from becoming even more dry.

A lively surprise before we set off, Matt found us through Meet Up and got stuck right in even though he lives in Kent and was only visiting Bristol for work - we're hoping you have many more work trips to Bristol, Matt!

We were soon mulch-moving from Hedgehog* Hotel to bags to scattering around plants, which might have been weeds, but we'll give them all a chance. The lower the mulch level in the Hedgehog Hotel, the deeper the trowel dive to fill the bags and the plants closest to the Hotel seemed very popular compared to the ones up the steep steps, funny old thing.

With the Hotel now vacant, we topped it up with leaves from the furthest store, making extra space by some vigorous jumping from Vaguely Northern Darren to squeeze in just a few more, scraped from around the edges of the old leaf pile by Tom, litter extracted by Jason and de-twigging by Richard, Jason and Francesbefore the return to Workout and more bonkers chat overlooking the water. How lovely.

*No actual hedgehogs were harmed at this task

It was full-on Bristol after a weekend of Harbour Festival loveliness to see hot air balloons back in the sky with the International Balloon Fiesta a few weekends away (and a cancellation of Ashton Court parkrun - you've been warned!). The general GoodGym rule of "see balloon, must point" was well-practised by the group of 5 walkers and 7 runners who'd joined forces to help clear some Southville Ward streets of weeds and save them from Bristol Waste's glyphosate.

Roddy found us by searching for the red t-shirts, Frances caught us up by searching for the right red t-shirts (there's no pulling the wool over Frances' eyes) and we all found the wheelbarrow of tools and made a plan after only five or so minutes chatting.

We were soon tacking the weeds on Murray Street, off Catherine Mead Street (not necessarily names after this Catherine Mead, but she's in the Academy of Cheese so deserves the name-check), Cameron making great in-roads beyond the parked car and Tom (named after the first King of Croatia, obviously) was a pro with the long-handled weeder-knife-thing, putting Vaguely Northern Darren's short-handled weeder-knife-thing to shame. Roddy was great at scooping up the piles of weeds and dusty dirt pulled out and swept up by the assembled mass of GoodGymmers.

Despite what the photos might suggest, Richards B and G worked really hard, too and Caroline, Jason and Helen seemed to have a race to fill the bin bags as quickly as possible so we soon ran out of official bin bag space and resorted to domestic bags.

All the bags were moved to the normal Bristol Waste pick-up spot, where we took credit for a number of green bags already there, Bristol waster will be thoroughly confused as we'd used clear (recycling) bags for the green waster and some of the green (non-recyclables) bags were blatantly full of drinks cans and bottles. Such a dilemma!

A great, if once again slightly warm, evening, finishing with a drink by the harbour at Workout where Caroline had a HUGE jug of oat milk with her pot of tea, we established everyone's birth month except Frances who protects her privacy with aplomb, and wished Ed well on his adventures to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow for his wardrobe-enhancing volunteering stint (and he's no longer on the naughty step, if anyone's asking).

See you all next week?